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By Same Author. 



GOD IN HUMAN THOUGHT; 
Or, Natural Theology Traced in Literature, Ancient and 
Modern, to the Time of Bishop Butler. With a Olosing 
Chapter on the Moral System, and an English Biblio- 
graphy from Spencer to Butler. By Prof. E. H. Gillett, 
of the N. T. University, author of "Life and Times of 
John Huss," etc. Two vols., 8vo, cloth. $5.00. 
Sent by mail en receipt of price. 



THE 



MORAL SYSTEM, 



HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. 



HAVING SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BP. BUTLER'S "ANALOGY." 



i!DestigneJ> as a Q^ext !3ook» 



ACADEMIES AND COLLEGES 



:.-^^ 



By E. H;>^GILLETT, 



PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK ; AUTHOR OF " LIFE AND TIMES 
OF JOHN HUSS " ; " GOD IN HUMAN THOUGHT," ETC, 



-■; . ^ i^-''4£L ^ JO' ' 






NEW YORK: 

SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & COMPANY, 

1874. 






Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1874, ty 

E. H. GILLETT, 

In the OlBce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



PREFACE 



My object in this work is to present a comprehensive hut 
concise view of the Moral System. We have treatises in 
abundance on the order and laws of the different departments 
of the material system, nor have mental and moral philosophy 
failed to receive that degree and amount of attention which 
have resulted in the preparation of numerous and able text- 
books. But the order and laws of the providential govern- 
ment of the world, although of paramount and personal inter- 
est, have rarely been discussed, except in connection with 
revealed dogmas, and there are few works which ever pretend 
to set forth any thorough and connected view of what has 
been termed the moral Jtosmos. The best known and most 
able in English literature, is undoubtedly Bp. Butler's "Anal- 
ogy of Religion, Natural, and Revealed," and this has been 
extensively used as a text-book in the higher schools and col- 
leges ; but the very title indicates that his object was not to 
present anything like a complete or connected scheme of the 
moral constitution of the world, but only such features of it 
as were exposed to the same criticisms as the scheme set forth 
in the Christian Scriptures. On other grounds, also, which 
will be manifest as we proceed, his work is unsuited not only 
to the wants of students in a course of education, but to the 
prevalent type of modern thought, which finds the gravest 
difiiculties where Butler found none, and often refuses to ad- 
mit without proof what he was content to assume. 

My own experience of the use of Butler as a text-book, in 
the university with wliich I am connected, has compelled me 
so far to modify his arrangement, and supplement or qualify 
his arguments — especially with a view to interest and instruct 
classes of young men, many of whom are repelled rather than 
attracted by Butler's style and method — that in my instruc- 
tions I have really substituted for Butler lectures of my own, 
retaining what was essential in his thought, and remolding it, 
in connection with new matter, so as to constitute the present 
volume. The advantages of the method which I have pur- 
sued have been obvious in several respects. A class of minds 
has been reached and interested — such as are to be found in 
every large institution — who would have regarded the study 

(3) 



4 PEEFACE. 

of the text of Butler with repugnance, but who have thus 
been attracted to a more systematic and comprehensive sui-vey 
of the Moral System, with its constitution and laws, as an 
organic whole. 

Indeed, grave objections, and by no means groundless, have 
been taken to the "Analog;^" as a text-book, some of which will 
be noted in the Introduction to this work. But it is enough 
to say it is unwise to thrust upon the attention of students, in 
a repulsive form, such truths as Butler presents. Yastly im- 
portant, they should not be divested of their attractiveness to 
thoughtful minds by the language or method in which they 
are set forth. Tet Sir James Mackintosh has remarked of 
Butler, " !N"o thinker so great was ever so bad a writer. . . . 
How general must the reception have been of truths so certain 
and momentous as those contained in Butler's discourses — 
with how much more clearness must they have appeared to 
his own great understanding, if he had possessed the strength 
and distinctness with which Hobbes enforces odious falsehood, 
or the unspeakable charm of that transparent diction which 
clothed the unfruitful paradoxes of Berkeley ! " 

It is manifest to any one who has paid attention to the 
subject, that a liberal education should be, as fiir as possible, 
symmetrical and comprehensive, as well as thorough, within 
the limits necessarily assigned. No important department of 
knowledge should be altogether overlooked. Yet there has 
of late been a strong tendency to allow physical science to 
encroach upon the sphere of moral, even while under the 
broad and proper sense of natural^ the physical and moral are 
both included. The study of the laws of mind is, to say the 
least, as important as the study of the laws of matter, and the 
distinction between right and wrong is as real, though im- 
palpable to sense, as any that is drawn by the mathematician 
or chemist. It is paying but an equivocal compliment to any 
scheme of education to say that it unfolds to the student the 
operation of such laws as those of gravitation or chemical 
affinities, but is silent as to the constitution of his own moral 
being, and the relation Vv^hich it sustains to the moral order 
of the world. 

l^iebuhr has remarked in his lectures (I. 146), that " as the 
consideration of nature shows an inherent Intelligence, which 
may also be conceived as coherent with nature, so does his- 
tory, on a hundred occasions, show an intelligence which is 
distinct from nature, which conducts and determines those 
things which may seem to us accidental ; and it is not true 
that the study of history weakens the belief in a divine provi- 
dence. History is, of all kinds of knowledge, the one which 
tends most decidedly to that belief." 



PESFACB. 5 

.But history can be most profitably studied, only wlien, in 
connection with the unfolding and regulated order of its 
events, we are prepared by the previous study of the Moral 
System, to see that it is pervaded by a plan which gives unity 
to that scheme of things whose sequences history records. 

In like manner the study of the Moral System, m connec- 
tion with other branches of science, is commended by its 
utility; but apart from this coiisideration, its intrinsic claims 
to investigation are paramount. If the laws of health con- 
cern our physical well-being, and if they demand recognition 
in the science of physiology, there are also laws of moral as 
well as mental health, which should not be overlooked, and 
if the order of the planetary and stellar worlds invites our at- 
tention, the order which is seen to pervade the Moral System 
will especially demand our recognition. Yery justly has Wil- 
liam Archer Butler remarked {Aug. Fhil, II., 56) : " With all 
our admiration for the energetic labors of the great naturalists 
of our day, and for the advances which the physical sciences are 
receiving through their combined exertions, v/e cannot refuse 
to see — and in all quarters the conviction is gaining strength 
among thoughtful men — that the spiritual world (except as 
far as practically presented by the preachers of religion) is in 
proportion eclipsed. It is, as it were, tm represented in the 
Parliament of Philosophy. This huge material universe, with 
all its labyrinth of laws, seems to fetter and entangle us ; 
and v/e are so overwhelmed by weight and motion, that mat- 
ter and being become equivalent terms, and we cannot allow 
the existence of a world to which these material attributes are 
■not attached." 

Such a grave practical error as this needs to be corrected, 
and it should be corrected at the very source in which it origi- 
nated. We are .not unwarrantably intruding into the relig- 
ious sphere, or introducing sectarian elements into education, 
when we simply call attention to facts as obvious and indis- 
putable as any that physical science reveals, and put upon 
them an interpretation justified by the laws of scientific 
method. To a certain extent we follow a track of thought, 
neither exclusively Pagan or Christian, but common to both, 
a track which runs parallel, indeed, only to a certain extent 
with that of revealed truth, but which constitutes the line 
which any consistent theory of obligation, whether of ethics 
or religion, must recognize. 

In all ages of intellectual activity, the most profound stu- 
dents have found themselves constrained to note, and to en- 
deavor, at least, to interpret those great facts lying along 
the path of human experience, which indicate a superintend- 
ing providence and human accountability. Indeed, a very 



6 PREFACE. 

large portion of ancient literature lias been shaped and colored 
by views of the relation of the human to divine, which, though 
conjoined with many errors, were yet expressive or suggestive 
of valuable truth ; and if, instead of accepting its guidance, 
we subject its teachings to criticism, availing ourselves of the 
clearer light of reason which belongs to a Christian age, we 
may hope to attain results in advance of any goal which it 
was able to reach, and to discern how solid is the basis upon 
which the fundamental truths of theology, natural and re- 
vealed, repose. 

It is proper to add, that the closing chapter of my work on 
" God in Human Thought ; or, Natural Theology Traced in 
Literature," is included also in this volume, for which it was 
originally prepared. 

At the close of the treatise, I have appended questions de- 
signed to facilitate its use as a text-book, and these questions 
cover the Historical Introduction as well as the main body of 
the work. As the Introduction is a very concise summary of 
the course of speculation anterior to the time of Butler, and 
as much of it has special reference to his "Analogy," the 
teacher can, at his discretion, use such portions of it only as 
he sees fitting, or omit it altogether. Many of its facts, how- 
ever, should, in the latter case, be given by the teacher, by 
way of illustration, in connection with lessons on " The Moral 
System." 

I had intended to include in the work a bibliography ex- 
tending from the time of Butler to the present, but even the 
somewhat incomplete one which I had prepared, would have 
very materially increased the bulk and cost of the volume, 
and I have been compelled to content myself with giving a 
quite meagre list of the leading works belonging to this 
period, which have followed in the line of Butler's specula- 
tions. They will be found in a note at the close of the His- 
torical Introduction. 

New York, September 29, 1874. 



CONTENTS. 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Testimony op CiiAssic Literature, . . 9 

II. Nemesis. The ERiiinsrYES. Fate, . . 19 

III. Teachings op Kevelation. Christian Fathers ; 

AiiGAZEL, Hooker, Herbert, Grotius, . . 26 

IV. HoBBES, Cumberland, Parker and others, . 30 
V. Locke, Toland, Collins, Tindal, . . .35 

VI. Pope's "Essay ON Man," ... 41 

VII. Butler's immediate Predecessors and Con- 
temporaries, . . . . .45 
Vin. Butler's "Analogy," . . . . 58 
IX. Merits and Depects op Butler's Method 

Considered, . . . . . .77 

THE MOEAL SYSTEM. 

I. Its Scientipic Claims and Relative Impor- 
tance, . . . . . .85 

II. Complex Elements of Man's Nature in their 

Mutual Relations, .... 88 

III. Man's Relations — Physical, Intellectual and 

Moral — to the External World, . . 93 

IV. Social Organization as Related to the Moral 

System, ...... 98 

V. Man's Relations to Social Organization and 

TO Society, ...... 104 

VI. Time as a Factor in the Moral System, . 115 

(7) 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER TAG'S 

VII. Man's MoRAii Nature, .... 121 

VIII. Objections to a Morax System Considered, 131 

IX. The Being and Character of the Author of 

the Moral System, .... 136 

X. The Future Life. The Negative Argument, 142 

XI. The Future- Life. The Positive Argument, . 148 

XII. Probation, ...... 157 

XIII. Severity op Present Trial, . . . 166 

XIV. Ketribution, ..... 173 
XV. Invalidity of Objections to the Moral System, 180 

XVI. The End Designed in the Moral System, . 185 

XVII. Divine Interposition Actual or Probable, . 194 

XVIII. The Fact op a Kevelation Considered, . 202 

XIX. Revelation and the Moral System, . . 208 

XX. Summary and Conclusion, . . . 213 



Historical Introduction. 



I. 

TESTIMO]SrT OF CLASSIC LITEEATTJEE. 

Tpie System of ligature, in tlie proper sense of the phrase, 
includes not merely the matter, but the constitution and laws 
of the entire universe. The idea of system is the placing to- 
gether of things in orderly or established relations. There 
may be system where we cannot discern the evidences of it, 
and manifold and extensive analogies compel us to assume its 
existence where these evidences are wanting. On this ground 
we feel warranted to employ the phrase — System of Nature — ■ 
and to infer that there is system throughout nature ; in other 
words, that it is universal. 

But the universal system of nature includes moral as well 
as physical elements. The latter have often been termed 
natural as distinguished from moral, but the foriner as well 
as the latter, are natural. They belong to the great whole of 
being. Their existence does not admit of dispute or question, 
and they stand together in established relations, whether the 
fact be recognized or not. Experience and observation assure 
us of it, insomuch that we speak, and must speak, of moral 
as well as physical laws, of intellectual, social, emotional, as 
well as material forces. 

As the Sidereal System is made up of subordinate systems, 
which yet in mutual connection constitute a grand imity, so 
the System of Nature is composed of minor constituent sys- 
tems, articulated or interwoven together ; yet in such a way 
that each may be considered by itseK, as well as related to the 
others. We may investigate the system of vegetable or of 
animal life, or, with Cudworth, discuss the " Intellectual Sys- 
tem " of the universe, but we do so by abstracting from the 

(9) 



10 THE MOEAL SYSTEM NATURAL. 

whole a certain class of elements, possessed of distinct charac- 
ters and relations, and considering these apart by themselves. 
If, in this way, we take up the constitution of man as a moral 
agent, and the laws which assert their authority over him as 
such, visiting him with reward or penalty, or plying him with 
motives appropriate to his nature, we have, under th6 System 
of ISTature, and included as an essential part of it, what re- 
quires a distinctive term, and to this the name Moral System 
is appropriately applied. 

This moral system is thus seen to be natural. It is a com- 
ponent part of the system of nature, interwoven with and an 
integral portion of it, and distinguished from it only in our 
thoughts for purposes of investigation. It is included under 
the phrase constitution and laws of nature, and, although we 
might suppose a material universe, exclusive of moral ele- 
ments, yet the actual universe embraces them, and cannot 
properly be understood, explained, or appreciated without 
them. Indeed, it may be that in them we shall find — apart 
from revelation — the fittest key to the interpretation of na- 
ture ; hints to explain the significance of material things and 
arrangements, which the things or arrangements, in them- 
selves, do not afford. The Moral System, therefore, is in the 
highest sense natural, and the contrast is not between natural 
and moral, but between moral and physical. 
• But a moral system must be distinguished from moral gov- 
ernment. The latter is more directly suggestive of the ele- 
ment of personal administration or supervision, not that the 
former excludes, or does not imply it, but it leaves it more in 
the background. "With this exception, the term Tnoral system 
is more comprehensive in its significance than moral govern- 
ment. It includes, or may include, much more than the mere 
administration of law, with a view of swaying men to obedi- 
ence by means of reward and penalty. Reformatory disci- 
pline, remedial provisions for transgression, moral influences 
infinite in their variety, as well as trial and probation, includ- 
ing the temporary arrest of judicial processes, are all consist- 
ent with a perfect moral system, while they would imply an 
imperfect, or rather, incomplete and modified moral govern- 
ment. The evidence that would fail to prove a. perfect moral 



geeek; weitees. 11 

government, miglit be fully adequate to prove tlie existence of 
a moral system, and a moral system tliat included many ele- 
ments of moral government. All that would be required would 
be to adduce facts indicative of the operation of laws plainly 
designed to produce certain moral results, or discourage from 
certain courses of action, objectionable on moral grounds, 
showing at the same time that these facts are of general signifi- 
cance, and that these laws, however tardily, are yet systemat- 
ically applied and enforced. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that from the earliest period 
of recorded human thought, we should find the existence of a 
moral system assumed. It may be grossly apprehended. Ap- 
parent incongruities or imperfections connected with it may 
even seem to imply an imperfect administration, or furnish 
some plausible ground for ascribing the phenomena of the 
moral order of the world to opposite principles, or a variety 
of divinities. In some cases there will naturally be a disposi- 
tion to harmonize or solve these incongruities from a Theistic 
standpoint ; in others, they will be accepted as inexplicable 
mysteries, or as proofs that the sphinx-like riddle of human 
existence is quite insoluble. But in most cases there wiU be 
some recognition of superhuman forces acting with design, 
concessions of a providence that exercises some hind of con- 
trol, whether capriciously, or wisely and beneficently, over 
the affairs of men. 

Throughout ancient classic literature, we trace an under- 
current of thought of this kind, and sometimes it comes dis- 
tinctly to the surface. In Solon's counsel to Crossus, to count 
no man happy till he is dead, we recognize, in connection with 
his repute for wisdom, his convictions of a providence that 
may make the splendors of wealth and power illustrate the 
supremacy of the great unseen power of justice, that deter- 
mines finally all human allotments. No careful student of 
Herodotus has failed to notice as a leading characteristic of 
his work, its almost constant recognition of a providence that 
exults to abase the proud, and defeat the designs of the might- 
iest ruler, who, like the Persian monarch, could seek to ciT.sh 
a free and enterprising people. Anaxagoras breaks loose from 
the precedents of a materialistic philosophy, to declare that the 



12 PYTHAGORAS. PLATO. 

origin of creation, with its establislied order, is inexplicable, 
without an informing mind, Pythagoras, in his famous let- 
ter Y, draws the picture of the branching paths of virtue and 
vice, " the broad and narrow ways," one strait and difficult, 
but with its rich revi^ards ; the other smooth and easy, but 
with its terrible sequel of retribution. The doctrine of the 
immortality of the soul he is said to have received from 
Pherecydes — said to have been indebted to the secret books 
of the Phoenicians — or to have derived it from Egypt, 
while, amid the vagaries of Polytheism, he attained, with his 
theory of numbers, to the conception of the One. Empedo- 
cles recognized the dependence on the Gods of " the creature 
of a day," and the stern law of retribution that would follow 
its blood-stained victim for "thrice ten thousand years." His 
idea of the Deity is that of " a holy infinite Spirit, not pro- 
vided with limbs, th5,t passes through the world with rapid 
thoughts," while the power of necessity seems by him identi- 
fied with " the ancient decree of the Gods." 

Democritus, although the Ilobbes of his age, and making a 
prudent egoism the corner-stone of his ethics, called the com- 
mon notion of chance a cover for human ignorance. Socrates, 
repelled by the scepticisms of the sophists and their ethics 
of selfishness, apprehended with unprecedented clearness the 
leading truths of the moral system ; arguing the divine exist- 
ence from design in nature ; making virtue the highest inter- 
est of man ; acknowledging an overruling providence ; assert- 
ing the punishment of sin, in sin itself ; and in his own ex- 
ample illustrating a sublime integrity that would accept the 
fatal hemlock sooner than seek to escape penalty by anything 
unworthy of himself ; and on his trial before his judges, and 
with his friends around him in his prison, giving evidence of 
being supported by that hope of immortality which assured 
his spirit of a final home with good men and with the Gods. 

In Plato we meet with the most remarkable thinker of the 
ancient heathen world. "With much that is crudely theoretic or 
fanciful, there is much that excites our admiration and com- 
mands our assent. A supreme mind, an overruling provi- 
dence, stern laws of duty, personal responsibility, the immor- 
tality of the soul, the depraved tendencies of human nature, 



AEISTOTLE. HOMEE. 13 

the high, and inspiring prospects of virtue, the impartial se- 
verity of final judgment, stern and inevitable retribution— 
these are among the most important topics on which he lav- 
ishes the wealth of his genius, while he reveals his own loftj 
conception of the possibilities of human existence. Aristotle, 
more cool and cautious, is theoretically a pure Theist, and to 
him Cicero has ascribed an argument which anticipates, in a 
very impressive manner, modern arguments for a creating 
mind from the design evinced in creation. He speaks of the 
future destiny of the soul in conditional phraseology, but in 
his l^icomachean ethics, he brings forward clearly and em- 
phatically the fact of moral distinctions, and displays those 
features of the moral system with which virtue harmonizes, 
and vice is at issue. Later Greek philosophy was content to 
copy from its great masters of the Platonic age, refining 
upon their speculations only to give them a false development ; 
although sometimes, as in the sublime hymn of Cleanthes, 
rising to apprehensions of the Divine being and providence, 
not unworthy of the finest conceptions of Plato himself. 
Notwithstanding the pictures he gives us of the disgraceful 
quarrels and vulgar huijian passions . of the rulers of Olym- 
pus, Homer re]3resents Zeus as the moral governor of the 
world. He is king of gods and men, the sovereign adminis- 
trator over all human interests. The good or evil from the 
two urns before him, are dispensed by his hand. His provi- 
denpe is universal, and the retributive forces of the universe 
cooperate v/ith his designs to maintain the moral order of 
the world. The fearful Erinnyes " represent Law in action." 
Mure remarks, in his " Critical History of Greek Language 
and Literature " (I. 1Y2), with reference both to the Iliad and 
'the Odyssey, " The general scheme of divine management in 
both poems is consistent and well-imagined. The supreme 
first cause or cflicient unity of the Deity, is Fate or Destiny. 
Zeus always steps in between contending powers as the Sav- 
iour God, and invariably turns the scale in favor of virtue." 
Thus, the doctrine of a superintending and controlling provi- 
dence is ever kept in view. Strength, Vvdsdom, and courage 
are the gifts of the Gods. They hear the prayers of mortals 
and mete out their lot ; Law is recognized as of universal obli- 



14r HESIOD. PINDAU. GEEEK TEAGEDIANS. 

gation. Invisible, but resistless forces execute it. Conceptions 
of them, evidently traditional, and accepted by Homer, are 
impersonated in Dike, Themis, !Nomos, or Nemesis, some- 
times the one and sometimes the other; but ever the same 
idea of justice or retribution — ever sitting at the right hand 
of Zeus, and acting as his judicial associates or consessors. It 
is especially in that dread word, Nemesis^ which Homer trans- 
mitted to the later Greek literature, that we recognize the 
idea of inevitable justice, and to this Fate sets the seal. 

In Hesiod, the Gods, " invisible, are ever nigh." Man has 
ten thousand unseen guardians, commissioned from on high, 
who rove the world. Eternal justice has her mansion in the 
sky, and her place at the feet of Zeus, where she presents her 
plaint, till retribution comes upon guilty nations. Wicked- 
ness wounds itself, and in the end its seeming prosperity is 
vain. The two paths of Hesiod are substantially identical 
with the two of Pythagoras. 

Pindar exhibits a firm 'belief in a superintending provi- 
dence. " The whole of his poetry is impregnated with a lively 
sense of the divine in the world." "ISTo Greek writer ex- 
. presses himself, in reference to the certainty of final and 
exact retribution, more confidently than Pindar." The Gods 
give victory, but " they enjoin duties, and humility, gratitude 
and moderation are obligatory." 

^schylus is the Milton of Greek poetry. ISTearer than any 
of his rivals does he approach the terrible and impressive sub- 
limity of the Hebrew prophets. ^Nemesis, the Fates and the 
Furies, are with him impersonated forces. Zeus is the chas- 
tiser of arrogance and overbearing thoughts. Crime can never 
escape final retribution. The invisible curse threads its way 
along the ages, and through generations, till the guilt is expi ■ 
ated. IsTothing is accidental. The moral system stands as 
firm as the throne of its Eternal Ruler. 

Sophocles, coming nearer to our human sympathies, and 
with more of harmony and sweetness, is by no means less 
lofty in his ethics. ISTo one has drawn more exquisitely the 
beauty of virtue when subject to trial. ITo one has invested 
" the eternal unwritten laws " of God with a more impressive 
majesty. Over these a sleepless and resistless providence pre- 



CICESO. 15 

sides. To guilt, however hedged with power, there is no pos- 
sibility of escape. Fate is resistless, and there is a " mighty 
Zeus " in heaven. Wilful wrong-doing challenges his wrath 
and its own doom. The soul is immortal, and retribution 
reaches beyond the grave. In Euripides, the influence of the 
age of the Sophists is distinctly to be traced. Instead of look- 
ing upward to the majestic heavenly hannonies, his eye is 
turned do^vnward to the earth. He sees the world, if not a 
vale of tears, a moral labyrinth, and his tragedies reflect the 
puzzling mazes and confused scenes of a moral system in 
which inexplicable problems are involved. 

It would delay us too long to trace the views of providence 
involved in such works as the " History of Thucydides," and 
the "Orations of Demosthenes." Yet the narrative of the 
one, and the appeals of the other, indicate a prevalent popu- 
lar sentiment that the Gods favor justice, and that their 
providence superintends the affairs of men. 

The two great sects of Epicureans and Stoics were rivals, 
and yet each bore testimony to fragmentary portions of the 
moral order of the world. The foimer, leaving the Gods to 
their eternal repose, still admitted that human happiness was 
subjected to certain flxed conditions, and that wisdom required 
the study of these. The Stoics, eulogizing and almost deify- 
ing virtue, made the good man who possessed it invincible by 
suffering or calamity. They vitalized the universe, and filled 
it with a providence, however crudely conceived. Their phi- 
losophy appealed strongly to the admiration and sympathies of 
those who had inherited a regard for the old Eoman ideal of 
virtue. But a sceptical element had been transmitted by the 
Academics, and we see its operation in the mind of Cicero as 
he discusses " The INTature of the Gods." Epicurean, Stoic, 
and Academic are alike allowed a hearing, and in the Tuscu- 
lan questions, we have the speculations of the most gifted of 
Koman orators and philosophers, on the immortality of the 
soul. Cicero accepts, with qualifications of doubt and uncer- 
tainty, most of the doctrines transmitted from Plato. He 
gives in his adhesion to the theory of a divine providence 
over human interests. He accepts and amplifies the concep- 
tion of the eternal unwritten law. He magnifies the beauty 



IG SENECA. PLUTAKCn. 

and claims of virtue, declining to conceal his abhon'ence of 

mere utilitarian ethics. As to the immortality of the soul, 
his confidence wavers ; while he reads Plato his doubts vanish, 
hut onlj again to reappear when he has laid the book aside. 

This is true also of 'Seneea, and yet in his writings we find 
the recognition of moral duties and relations, which are held 
up to view, as a check, if possible, upon the depravity of the 
age. Of human nature, his picture is far from flattering ; 
but he manifests a high appreciation of the excellence and 
beauty of virtue, while few ancient writers go beyond him in 
the sublime conception of an universal providence. He m.ay 
use, like his contemporaries, such terms as fate or fortune, 
but he hai'monizes them with his theistic scheme, and leaves 
nothing to chance. The Stoic ideal of living " according to 
nature," commends itself to his approval, but this nature is to 
be consistent with the supremacy of reason. 

Plutarch is more thoroughly human and genial, an Eclec- 
tic in his philosophy, but with strong stoical leanings. He 
believes that " the art of a great understanding produced the 
world ;" that the condition of man, without a presiding Intel- 
ligence, would be pitiable ; that Providence is wise and benef- 
icent ; that man, in whom we see the ripe fruit of the Crea- 
tor's plans, has an immortal destiny before him, and is not to 
be blasted or extinguished in a moment and forever ; that the 
hope of immortality is needed to sustain the soul ; that virtue 
is ordaiued to be closely allied to blessedness, and vice to mis- 
ery ; that happiness does not consist in what is external, but 
the soul itself may become its own bitterest tormentor ; that 
for guilt there is no escape, while wealth and power cannot 
afford it ease or security. It is true, as set forth in De Sera 
Ifnminis Yindicta, that deserved retribution is tardily in- 
flicted, but this shows that God does not punish in haste and 
anger, while swift penalty might involve the innocent with 
the guilty, or out off chosen instruments of Providence before 
their time, or deny merciful opportunities for repentance. 
The visitation of the iniquity of parents upon children makes 
a more lasting and salutary impression. Lingering justice 
allows also for moral discipline. Submission to unavoidable 
evils is a duty. "We come into being, not to prescribe our 



ANTONmuS. EPICTETUS. 17 

own lot, but to accept what is given, and obey tlae Gods that 
govern the world. Future retribution is accepted and held 
in Plato's sense. Moral distinctions are not conventional, 
but eternal. Self-examination and introspection are the part 
of every wise man. I^ature is not void of reason, but full of 
God. 

The "Meditations" of the imperial philosopher, Marcus 
Aurelius Antoninus, set before us the highest Stoic ideal. 
He reverences the power of Gods who exist, although, like 
his own soul, unseen. A wise Providence has established 
and guards the moral order of the world. The " Universal 
jN^ature " — Pantheistic as the phrase may sound — is at once 
resistless, intelligent, and just. Fate is the necessary connec- 
tion or consequence of causes, as related to events. There is 
no real evil in the world. Nothing happens ; all is pre- 
ordained, yet the governing intelligence has no malice toward 
any. There is a moral order of the world, a mutual adjust- 
ment, as of squared stones in a wall or pyramid. Soul and- 
body have different destinies. For the former, there may be 
a life hereafter, but if otherwise, it has reached its port ; it is 
released from the body that enslaved it. It will be absorbed 
in the universal soul, for in its origin, it is an efflux from 
God. Man's duty here, is to live " according to nature," to 
follow reason, the great law of the universe ; to keep the soul 
within unpolluted, and follow its dictates as those of a god. 
Stoic virtue will teach how to endure, and take their sting 
from the unequal allotments of life. 

In Epictetus we meet with ethical teachings and concep- 
tions, which, for loftiness and beauty, are unsurpassed among 
heathen writers. The Poman slave, subject, with his feeble 
frame, to more than ordinary hardships, is a more genuine 
philosopher than his imperial rival. The purity of his doc- 
trine, and his own virtuous example, have warranted the epi- 
thet bestowed upon him, of "the great ornament" of the 
Stoic School. His recognition of the moral order of the 
world is habitual. He dwells impressively on the Omnipres- 
ence of God. The nature and reason of man indicate his 
duty. " A rational creature," he says, " I must sing hymns 
to God." To Him belongs the a-oodness of a father, and the 
2 



18 EOMAN POETS AND HISTORIANS. 

authority of a ruler. As His subject and cMlcl, man is to seek 
to know and please Him. To do this, constitutes the struggle 
and the duty of Hfe. It is a task, a discipline, a warfare. If 
the trial is severe, it has its uses. If the soul shrinks from it, 
it is false to its trust, and must expect retribution. If faith- 
ful, it will be approved, for God's smile is on the good, 
whether living or dead. Unlike Seneca, Epictetus does not 
approve of suicide. One is to stand, like the soldier at the 
post assigned him, until discharged by his commander. Of 
the immortality of the soul, although frequently implied, Epic- 
tetus has little to say. Virtue and vice, however, must be 
attended by their proper results, reward or penalty. 

In the Roman poets and historians we meet with numerous 
passages and expressions, sometimes setting forth their own, 
and sometimes reflecting the popular view of different and 
isolated features of the moral system. Singular as it may 
seem, they are frequent in Horace and in Ovid, and the trib- 
ute paid by the former to the power of conscience in the 

memorable lines, 

"Hie murus aheneus esto, 
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa," 

for force and beauty, has rarely been surpassed. The deprav- 
ity of the age, and the debasement to which human nature 
gravitates when left to itself, as well as the fearful retribu- 
tions, even on earth, of unscrupulous vice, are impressively 
presented in the satires of Juvenal, and in the pages of Taci- 
tus. The portrait which the latter gives us of the combined 
infamy and misery of Tiberius, is one of the most memorable 
things in ancient literature. Even in Csesar, we find that when 
he deals with the Galhc tribes,and while such a sceptic himself, 
he labors to impress upon them the lesson, that the delay of 
divine retribution is only to the end that when the blow falls 
at last, it may come with the more crushing weight. Livy 
reflects a conviction, if not popular, at least widely prevalent, 
that the decadence of the Roman empire, or of its inherited 
glory and prestige, in his day, was due to the lack of that 
primitive piety in which the foundations of the nation were 
laid. He seems even to suggest that theory of the prospec- 
tive dissolution of the vast empire, which Augustine, in his 



OEIENTAL rniLOSOPHY. PHILO. 19 

De Civitate Dei, has so eloquently presented. It is signifi- 
cant that for generations after the founding of Rome, idolatry 
was unknown ; and that ISTuma, the prophet - lawgiver and 
organizer of the nation, is so disposed to nurture and employ 
in the support of his institutions, that instinctive sense of a 
superhuman providence and justice, which is the attestation 
of the human conscience to the existence of the moral system. 



II. 

NEMESIS. THE EEINNTES. FATE. 

Chkistianitt had already begun to exert its powerful modi- 
fying influence upon the world's thought, when Seneca, Plu- 
tarch, Epictetus, and Marcus Am'elius Antoninus flourished. 
It spoke with a tone of authority unlike that of all the schools 
of ancient philosophy. Its influence, long before the time of 
Constantine, had been deeply and widely felt. Accepted by 
thoughtful minds educated in the Platonic philosophy, it was 
received often by them as a philosophy as well as religion. 
The attempt was made in repeated instances, to harmonize 
Platonism with Christianity, and friends and foes alike were 
disposed to call in the pupil of Socrates as their ally. 

But an Oriental element, distinct from both the others, was 
pressing for recognition. It is seen in Philo, and some of the 
leading members of the Alexandrian school. In connection 
with Christianity, it gave birth to the various forms of Grnos- 
ticism, which essayed to trace the creation of matter back to 
^ons or a Demiurgos, that no dishonor might be imputed to 
the transcendent Intelligence, who was supposed to exist inde- 
pendent of all relations that would impHcate him in the evil 
or imperfection of the world. 

It is impossible to trace minutely, and in its various direc- 
tions, the influence of this element upon the speculation of 
the age. It was resisted at times by heathen philosophers 
and Christian teachers alike. As both called Plato to their 
aid, it was impossible that a new interest should not be awak- 



20 NEO-PLATONISM. NEMESIS. 

ened in regard to the writings and speculations of the Greek 
philosopher. ISTeo-Platonism was the revival, not by any 
means in their identity or purity, of points that Plato had 
taught and held. Powerfully modified by the new religion 
which it opposed, it strove to intei'pret Greek philosophy in a 
sense which was defensible by reason, and acceptable to the 
age. We are not surprised, therefore, to find a semi-christian 
sense given to heathen dogma, or heathen terms vindicated 
from the objections of Christian critics. 

Among the terms of great moral significance, which had 
found a place in Greek literature, were those of Themis, 
Dike, ITemesis, the Erinnyes, and Fate. At an early period 
justice ceases to be an abstract quality or attribute; and 
Themis, as we have seen, becomes the consessor or counsellor 
of Zeus. 

Of K"emesis, we may say, that in studying the application 
and use of the term, we find it expressive of a most exalted 
conception, that of the pervading element of distributive and 
exact justice, in accordance with law. There is nothing too high 
for it to reach ; nothing too low or mean for it to overlook, 
provided it has in it any moral element, any ground for praise 
or blame. Its impersonality is uniformly, if not always pre- 
served, as if its purity or perfection would be soiled by con- 
tact with any element or attribute of personal character. " JSTe- 
mesis is to Hesiod the key-stone of the universal order ; if 
that be removed, all will be dissolved and go to wreck. . . . 
Neither in the Iliad, nor in the Odyssey, is JSTemesis a deity, 
nor even a personified moral quality. . . . We are compelled 
to recognize beneath this garb a true consciousness of God, a 
sense of his actual presence in human affairs. . . . Nothing 
less than the sanctity of a moral energy which had the idea 
of JSTemesis as the centre of men's inward religious feeling, 
could have revealed to the Greek his Epos and Drama, and 
conducted both in his hands to the summit of perfection." 
Tet this idea pervades the universe like an atmosphere. It 
encompasses thrones, and exists changeless and eternal through 
all the ages. The very apprehension of it, as a controlling 
element in the order of the world, makes that order moral. 
All material changes, and all operations of physical laws, and 



THE ERmNTES. 21 

all puttings forth of hnman will or energy, must be in volun- 
tary or enforced submission to its behest. 

Mm'e (iv. 368) remarks : " Every act of signal folly, espe- 
cially "when committed in the face of some sacred warning, is 
represented as the object of a special Kemesis ; and as visited 
sooner or later on the guilty person himself, or his descend- 
ants, with its proper meed of retributive vengeance." 

Of the Erinnyes, it may be said, that while their office is 
discharged in the interests of justice, that justice is so stem, 
so unrelenting, so disposed to extort the uttermost farthing, 
that they are consistently represented as clothed in personality. 
They are rather prosecutors than judges. They have Nothing 
to do with tolerance or equity, but only press the shai"p letter 
of the law, from which not one jot or tittle must ever pass 
away. Of mercy they know nothing. Of virtues commingled 
or associated with vices, they take no notice. The ounce of 
flesh nearest the heart — according to the strict terms, as of a 
contract — they must and will have ; and in pursuit of it, un- 
less restrained by superior authority, they would press into 
the very penetralia of the sacred temple. Mere human au- 
thority might relax its severity at the sight of suffering. 
Mere human justice might feel itself disarmed by the calam- 
ity of its destined victim, but the Erinnyes feel no compassion, 
and experience no compunction. The Orestes of Greek Trag- 
edy illustrates this feature of their character, as well as the 
sphere they are supposed to fill. Their presence in the moral 
system represents its vindictive element. It sets forth its 
most terrible and impressive features. If we are tempted, in 
view of the human weaknesses of the Gods of Olympus, to 
despise their character or slight their authority, the Erinnyes 
come in to abate our confidence or rebuke our presumption. 
It matters not whether their personality was helieved in ; the 
conception of them gives a peculiar aspect to the moral order 
of the world. 

It must be admitted that the word/afe, had diverse signifi- 
cations as employed by classic writers of different ages. But it 
is equally plain that in some instances it was used in the sense 
of what we should denominate the established order of things. 
In his work on " Divination," Cicero represents his brother, 



22 FATE IN HOMEE. 

Quintus, as saying, "Eeason compels us to admit that by 
fate all things take place ;" and then adds, " By fate, I mean 
that which the Greeks called elfiapiievi], that is, a certain order 
and series of causes — for cause linked to cause produces all 
things ; and in this connection of causes consists the constant 
truth which flows through all eternity." In some cases, espe- 
cially among the earlier Greek writers, the idea of fate was, 
in some more or less definite way, associated with a presiding 
will. In others we may regard it as the necessary resultant 
from the aggregate of all natural laws and moral forces, as 
well as the accumulated influences of human action working 
out their inevitable issue. 

Another distinction of the senses in which the term was 
employed, is noted by Cicero in his treatise on "Fate." 
" The ancient philosophers," he says, " are divided into two 
parties on the doctrine ; some of whom maintain that fate 
works all in all, and that it exerts a necessary and compul- 
sive force over all agents; of which opinion were Democ- 
ritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle ; while others 
asserted that fate had no influence whatsoever over the volun- 
tary acts of the soul. Between these two opinions, Chry- 
sippus, as an honorary arbiter, held a middle course ; but he 
seems to approach nearest to those who believe the acts of the 
soul to be free from necessity." 

In Homer the precise relation of fate to the will of Zeus 
cannot consistently be defined. Sometimes it seems to stand 
for a power that may be considered apart from that will, and 
at others, for the solemn and irrepealable decree in which it 
finds expression. Bunsen remarks :* " The relation of Zens to 
Destiny has been often falsely conceived. Zeus stands in an 
ordered universe ; to this Kosmos it appertains before all, 
that all beings abide within the law of their ovsoi existence. 
Thu^ man, the noblest of them all, must die ; this is his des- 
tiny ; but it is part of the order established by Zeus : whose 
essence is at one with this thought. He who invokes the 
Gods against this order, sets himself up in opposition to the 
father of the Gods, and falls a prey to madness. Zeus is not 
bound to Moira as to. a blind destiny; he is,j?er se^ the law 

* Bunsen's "God in History," II. 103. 



AKCIENT VIEW OF FATE. 23 

of the world and of all beings, and maintains that law invio- 
late." 

The difficulty of rightly apprehending the relation of Zeus 
to fate, which we meet in Homer, occurs elsewhere, also, in 
Greek literature. Cicero represents one of the Greek poets 
as asserting, " that the Supreme Jupiter cannot prevent that 
which is decreed to come to pass," Herodotus says, "It is 
impossible for God himseK to avoid the destined fate ;" and 
again, " God himseK is the servant of necessity." The ex- 
planation of this seeming subordination of the Deity to a 
power outside of himself, is given in the assertion that God 
governs himself by the same reason by which he governs the 
world. Consistent with this is the language of Pindar, quoted 
by Plato, that " the law (of Providence) iniles over all, both 
mortal men and the immortal Gods," as well as that of Simon- 
ides, " the Gods themselves do not resist ^Necessity," that is, 
the uncontrollable laws of Divine Providence. God himself 
is determined invariably to sustain the eternal order, to act in 
accordance with it, and so may be said to be bound by and 
to obey his own laws, as being most wise and perfect. 

That what the ancient philosophers meant by Fate is not 
inconsistent with the freedom of human actions, has been 
elaborately and learnedly argued by Jackson, the chronolo- 
gist.* He cites the interpretation put by A. Gellius on the 
words of Homer : 

" O! how do mortal men accuse us Grods! 
They say their Evils all proceed from us ; 
But they, not Fate^ bring mischief on them.selves 
Thro' their own voluntary wickedness." 

The concurrence of the Platonic and Aristotelian philoso- 
phy in this matter, notwithstanding the assertion of Cicero as 
to the latter, is said to be asserted by Hierocles, who speaks 
with contempt of those w^ho pretended they disagreed, and to 
their common notion of fate, he professes himseK to adhere, 
viz : " That it was not the senseless necessity of the for- 
tune-tellers ; nor the Stoical compulsion, but that it was the 
judicial operation of the divine power, effecting events accord- 
* A Defence of Human Liberty, 1725. Second Edition, 1730, 



24 FATE AND PKOVIDENCE. 

ing to the laws of providence, and determining tlie order and 
series of our circumstances in tlie world according to the free 
pui'poses of our voluntary actions." 

After remarking upon numerous citations on the subject 
from ancient authors, Jackson concludes : " From the preced- 
ing observations, we learn what was the true opuiion in gen- 
eral, both of the Platonics and Stoics, concerning Fate ^ 
namely, that it was no other than the Laws of Divine Provi- 
dence^ whereby all things are governed according to their 
several natures ; and, therefore, particularly in respect of 
men, it was understood to be the rules and decrees of Divine 
Providence, determining the events of human life, and dis- 
pensing rewards and punishments according to the natm-e of 
men's voluntary actions. They thought that God governed 
the world by His sovereign will^ which they called Provi- 
dence ; by which he made fixed and unalterable laws for the 
administration of the whole universe, and that he determined 
men's conditions, and their happiness or misery, whether here 
or hereafter, according as their actions freely chosen, and 
done voluntarily, should be. So that Fate in reality was no 
other than Providence, or the immutable law and rule of 
God's government of the world ; and which was called JSTeees- 
sity . . . because it was the necessary law of all nature ; and 
the external effects of it, or the events produced by it, by a 
series of antecedent causes, in consequence of men's voluntary 
actions, were unavoidable and necessary." 

That this was the very generally accepted notion of Fate, 
is evidenced by the language of numerous writers. Chrysip- 
pus says, " Fate is the Reason of the world, or th3 law of. 
Providence by which all things in the world are governed." 
Gicero, in the person of Yelleius, represents the stoical notion 
of Fate to be, " That all events proceed from the eternal truth 
and connection of causes." Diogenes Laertius defines their 
opinion — " That Fate is the connection of the causes of things, 
or that Peason by which the world is governed." Seneca says, 
" Fate is nothing else but the connection of causes." He identi- 
fies it with ITature, and, also, with Providence, as the working 
energy of the universe. Tacitus, speaking of the Stoics, says : 
" They attribute, indeed, a fatality unto things ; but not as pro- 



SEKSES OF THE WOED FATE. 25 

ceecling from the motion of tlie planets, but from the princi- 
ples and connection of natural causes ; and yet they leave the 
conduct of our life to our own choice, which being chosen, a 
certain order of events, they think, follows." Alcinous, in com- 
menting on Plato's opinion of Fate, says : " He understands 
Fate to be this : that if any person chooseth such a sort of life, 
and will do such and such actions, such and such consequences 
will follow. But the consequence of its action will be effected 
by fate." Fate, Hierocles asserts, " is the judicial operation 
of the Deity, effecting events according to the laws of Provi- 
dence, and directing human actions in the order and course 
that is suitable to their free purposes and voluntary actions." 

The sense in which the term is used is defined by his rea- 
soning. " If," says he, " bodily and external events fall out 
fortuitously and by chance, what becomes of the superintend- 
ency of God, to judge and recompense every one according 
to his deserts." He asserts that we ought not " to ascribe all 
things to the unintelligent and undirected circumvolution of 
the universe, there being a mmd that presides over all things, 
and a God who is the author of the world." Evidently, by 
Fate is understood that fixed constitution of things, which 
excludes the idea of chance or fortune. Chalcidius asserts 
Fate to be "the decree of Providence, comprehending our 
voluntary actions, as the precedent grounds of it ; compre- 
hending, also, the recompense of our deserts. Punishment 
and approbation, which are by fatality, and all those things 
which happen fortuitously or by chance, are the consequents 
of it." Commenting on Plato, Chalcidius says, that Fate, 
" in his PhcBclrtLS, is an unavoidable decree ; in his Timoeus, 
the laws which God endited to celestial beings concerning 
the nature of the universe." 

In their notion of Fate, the Stoics are asserted to be in sub- 
stantial agreement with the IN^ew Platonists. Heraclitus styles 
the substance of Fate, that reason which pervades the substance 
of the universe. Chrysippus is said to have identified Fate 
with Jupiter, or " the power of that perpetual and eternal 
law which is, as it were, the guide of our life and director of 
our duty." According to Diogenes Laertius, God and mind, 
and Fate and Jupiter, were one and the same. According to 



26 CHRISTIANITY AND THE MORAL SYSTEM. 

Alexander Aphrodisms, tlie Stoics held that Fate, and K'a^ 
ture, and Reason, by which the universe is governed, is God. 
Admitting the strong temptation of the ]^eo-Platonists to 
put the least objectionable sense upon the terms of heathen 
philosophy and mythology, it is quite obvious that they had 
in numerous cases, not only plausible but satisfactory grounds 
on which to rest their intei'pretation of the word Fate. As 
impersonal, it must necessarily express some blind force with- 
out intelligence, of which the mind can form no distinct con- 
ception, or it must have a meaning nearly synonymous with 
the order of Providence. In all probability it was often used 
in an indeterminate sense ; and yet, in many instances, as by 
Plato, Seneca, and many of the Stoics and ]!^ew Platonists, the 
idea involved in it must have been equivalent to that of Provi- 
dence, or the divine ordering of the world through the estab- 
lished relations of cause and effect. A candid view, therefore, 
of the terms in frequent use by the ancient writers, to which 
we have refeiTed, will lead us to the conclusion, that how- 
ever indefinite their apprehensions on many points, the more 
thoughtful of them did accept the leading doctrines of a moral 
system. 



III. 

TEACHINGS OE REVELATION. CHRISTIAN FATHERS. ALGAZEL. 
HOOKER. HERBERT. GROTIUS. 

So far as the leading truths of the Moral System are con- 
cerned, Christianity simply accepted them as an inheritance 
from the Jewish Scriptures. In these, the outlines of that 
system are clearly and conspicuously presented. We are never 
allowed to lose sight of God as the Creator, Sovereign, and 
Judge of the universe ; controlling all things by an omnis- 
cient and omnipotent providence ; administering law with a 
wisdom which man's short-sightedness may not impeach, and 
rewarding and punishing in accordance with his scheme of 
moral government, and the ends of human probation. 

Man is exhibited as accountable and responsible ; a moral 



HEBREW SOKIPTURES. 27 

agent, subject to moral law ; tried by temptation, tbat lie may 
have the opportmiity to resist, and attest his fidelity ; with 
the assurance that on his present conduct, his future blessed- 
ness depends. 

In the Book of Job, we have a dramatic expression of the 
Moral System, at once impressive and sublime. In the pro- 
gress of the drama, the problems of suffering innocence and 
successful iniquity, necessarily invite solution. They are not 
allowed, however, to obscure the great truth of a Divine 
Providence, and human doubts and scepticisms are confront- 
ed with the infinite majesty, and the ineffable wisdom of 
Jehovah, while the sequel is a triumphant vindication of 
unmurmuring faith in Him who sees the end from the 
beginning. 

in the Book of Proverbs, we have, embodied in concise and 
antithetical maxims, the intuitions or experiences of Hebrew 
sages, with relation to the existence and administration of the 
Moral System. While of this, there is no connected or con- 
tinuous exposition, there are constant flashes of striking and 
profound thought, which reveal its prominent, even though 
isolated features. As we pass from proverb to proverb, we 
witness what is revealed by a new turn of the kaleidoscope, 
and discover new features of the laws and constitution of the 
moral world. To some extent this is also true of some of the 
Apocryphal Scriptures — the Book of Wisdom and Ecclesi- 
asticus. 

But it is in the writings of the Hebrew prophets that we 
meet with the clearest enunciation of God's providential 
moral government, and the immutable principles on which it 
is conducted. In their pages, we see empires and monarchs, 
dynasties and nations, priests, people, slaves, and prisoners, 
subject to an invisible control, and working out, often uncon- 
sciously, the vindication of an overruling justice, or incurring 
the inevitable doom of their guilt. Under their guidance, a 
pathway through the mysteries of the divine procedure is 
opened up, lighted sometimes to an intense and lurid glare 
by the blaze of sudden or lingering retribution. War, famine, 
pestilence, the fury of the invader, or the captivity of the 
vanquished, appear as the mysterious and almost incarnate 



■28 CIIKISTlAJSr TEACHERS. 

agents of a justice that may linger, but never slumbers, and 
can never be finally defeated. 

Lessons so impressively tauglit became the fundamental 
assumptions of the Christian system, into which, by a divine 
adjustment, was fitted the scheme of redemption, ivlany of 
the parables of Christ himself, are simply gi'aphic delinea- 
tions of the nature of that " kingdom of heaven," Avhich, in 
certain of its main features, is identical with what we denomi- 
nate the Moral System. 'No teacher, before or since, has ever 
set forth so impressively and vividly, the conditions and laws 
of human duty, or the necessary connection between guilt and 
its penalty. If, for a moment, we could suppose them the 
utterance of uninspired wisdom, the majestice force and grand- 
eur with which they are characterized, would compel assent to 
the truths they embody, as lucid and indisputable in their 
own seK-evidencing light. 

With the spread of Christianity, these tniths went abroad, 
and were accepted as a part of the Christian faith. But the 
peculiar features and doctrines of revelation provoked an an- 
tagonism which concentrated upon them a somewhat exclu- 
sive attention, and led their champions to depreciate what 
claimed support from the light of nature, as a disparagement to 
the superior light and merits of revelation. Theologians, zeal- 
ous to vindicate the vital truths of the gospel, or perhaps, 
more frequently, their ecclesiastical dogmas, which derived 
feeble countenance from the natural laws and order of the 
Moral System, neglected these, or abandoned them to the 
speculations of men who were disposed to pursue them in the 
interests of a Pagan or sceptical, rather than a Christian, phi- 
losophy. Each party was swayed more or less by prejudice, 
and, almost as a necessary result, the Moral System was re- 
garded with an undue measure of indilference, if not of hos- 
tile prejudice. 

This is manifest in the writings of some among the Chris- 
tian Fathers, and their successors in later centuries. There 
were, however, marked exceptions. Among the early cham- 
pions of Christianity, there were some who had been educated 
in Greek philosophy ; and who, even after their conversion, 
retained their prejudices or predilections in its favor. Justin 



CHEISTIAN FATHERS. 29 

Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, were among 
those who did not despise the suffrage of human reason in 
their attempt to vindicate revealed truth, and St. Augustine's 
admii'ation of Plato is freely avowed. 

In collision with Gnosticism, Manicheism, and especially 
Mohammedanism, Christian writers were led to discuss suc- 
cessively some of the fundamental truths of natural theol- 
ogy. Among these were the relation of God to the material 
universe and to His intelligent creation, and the immateriality 
and immortality of the soul. Mohammedan writers took up 
the discussion of these topics, and among these Algazel de- 
serves prominent mention. His "Alchemy of Happiijess" 
repeatedly reminds us of Bp. Butler's " Analogy." The uni- 
versahty of Divine Providence ; the imperfection of human 
knowledge ; the delusive nature of the world ; the relation of 
the present life to the future ; the duties and hazards of pres- 
ent probation, — these are the leading points upon which he 
insists, sometimes with a lofty eloquence. 

The Scholastics did not fail to pay attention to these same 
topics ; some of them aiming to vindicate the truths of revela- 
tion by the testimonies of reason and experience ; others wast- 
ing their ingenuity upon frivolous or curious questions, lead- 
ing to no satisfactory results. The overthrow of Constantinople 
scattering the remains of Greek literature over Europe, was 
contemporary with that reviving zeal for classic studies, which 
it powerfully contributed to develop;' and among its results 
was the revival, in Italy especially, of the study of the Pla- 
tonic philosophy. In connection with this, various questions 
of natural theology attracted attention, and were elaborately 
discussed. But in England no great or memorable work pre- 
ceded the production of Richard Hooker on " Ecclesiastical 
Lav/." The first book of this treatise, dealing with the Law 
of ]N^ature, was enriched with the spoils of classic learning. 
The author, familiar with Cicero and other ancient writerSj 
copiously adduces their testimony in confirmation of the posi- 
tions which he maintains. Homer, with his concession to the 
supremacy of Jupiter's counsel ; Sophocles, with his tribute to 
" the eternal unwritten laws ;" Laetantius, Augustine, Boethius, 
and Aquinas, together with the Stoics, are cited to testify to 



30 LORD HEKBEKT. GKOTIIJB. 

the Law of ligature, and the moral order of the world involved 
in it. 

A little more than a quarter of a century passed by when 

(1624) the celebrated work, De Yeritate, of Lord Herbert, 
the Father of the English Deists, appeared, almost contem- 
porary with the publication of the famous work of Grotius 

(1625) on the " Eights of Peace and War." The two men 
were on intimate terms, and Herbert assures us that his work 
was published with the approval of Grotius. It laid down 
five principles : among them the existence of God, the im- 
mortality of the soul, and a future life, as indisputably attested 
by the light of nature. These were estabhshed on the grounds 
of reason, and by the universal consent of all ages, and it was 
left to be inferred that, as they supplied a sufficient basis for 
natural religion, revelation was superfluous, or was to be ac- 
cepted only so far as it rested upon them. 

The work of Grotius, designed to establish the rights of hu- 
manity and justice, grossly trampled under foot by the un- 
scrupulous warfare of the age, appealed not exclusively to 
Scripture authority, which might be rejected by one-haK of 
Christendom, nor to Papal decrees, which might be rejected 
by the other, but to the testimony of reason in all ages ; to 
historians, philosophers, and poets ; to the principles of equity 
embodied in the Roman law, or whatever else could be sup- 
posed to illustrate and enforce the obligations of the Law of 
Nature. 



lY. 

HOBBES, CtnVIBEELAJS^D, PAKKEE, KST> OTHERS. 

Opposed to the theory of a Law of Nature, as set forth alike 
by Hooker and Grotius, stood that celebrated writer who be- 
longs to the generation that succeeded them, Thomas Hobbes 
of Malmesbury. Before the civil wars of England had com- 
menced (1641), he gave evidence of what was regarded by 
many, as his dangerous speculative tendencies. A few years 



HOBBES ATSTD HIS OPPONENTS. 31 

later, his " Leviathan " followed, and created such alarm that 
hosts of writers came forward to defend the principles which 
he was therein supposed to assail. With him may be said to 
have originated the two-fold controversy, political and theo- 
logical, which, in some of its phases, continued down to the 
time of Bishop Butler, and is traceable in some of the discus- 
sions of his " Analogy." Hobbes denied a Law of I^ature, in 
the Grotian sense. He made the natural state of man one of 
mutual hostility, with a right to everything, or rather, with no 
rights but those of the stronger. From this state of war he saw 
no way of escape, except after wearisome and fruitless strug- 
gle, when the exhausted combatants were prepared to concede 
to the stronger, or some one possessed of power confirmed by 
their adhesion, authority to regulate and control the social 
body thus organized as a state. To him belonged the right 
to legislate and to enforce legislation. He was supreme, and 
from his decision there was no appeal. To him it belonged 
to estabhsh a national religious creed and worship, and to 
tolerate no dissent or divergence from it. Here only the law 
of nature, or of right reason, found its place, an essential ele- 
ment of which was the despotism of " Leviathan," the em- 
bodied organization ruled and guided by the single supreme 
will. 

Thus was a blow struck at the basis of natural and civil 
rights, and at the same time at the foundation of natural the- 
ology and a moral system. Statesmen like Lord Clarendon, 
and theologians like Cudworth, came forward to confute the 
obnoxious errorist. They came, almost in crowds, and the 
more promptly when Hobbes proceeded to put forth more dis- 
tinctly his views in advocacy of Materialism and JSTecessity. 
Foremost among his assailants were the leading members of 
the " Platonic School " of Cambridge, who were prepared to 
draw their weapons from the stores of ancient classic litera- 
ture. Their predilection for Plato gave them the name by 
which they were known, and their aggregate productions, en- 
riched with recondite learning and original thought, would 
make a respectable library. There were Culverwell's " Light 
of l^ature," Glanvill's " Scepsis," and other writings ; Henry 
More's " Dialogues," " Mystery of Godliness," " Yindication 



32 cumbekland's treatise, 

of the Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul," etc. ; Cnd- 
worth's " Intellectual System," a store-house of recondite learn- 
ing ; John Smith's eloquent and ingenious " Discourses ;" Bp. 
Wilkins' "JS'atural Theology;" Whichcote's "Apothegms;" 
" The Living Temple " of the " Seraphic " John Howe, and 
publications by Bishops Busk, Cumberland, Bowler, and Bat- 
rick. Fighting the same battle with them was Bichard Bax- 
ter, who conceded that the proper method of meeting the 
infidelity of the age, was to press home upon it those princi- 
ples of reason and natural law which had been vindicated by 
ancient classic writers whom he does not hesitate to quote ; 
and though associated with Oxford rather than Cambridge, 
Bp. Seth Ward, Dr. Wallis, the Hon, Robert Boyle, and Bp. 
Jeremy Taylor, must not pass without mention in this 
connection. "With some of these, especially with Taylor, the 
Law of ]l!^ature was a favorite topic, and upon it he lavished 
the treasures of his learning and the wealth of his genius. 
Sir Matthew Hale came f orv\^ard to participate in the discus- 
sion, and vindicate the reasonableness of his own Christian 
faith by considerations which involved a careful study of the 
constitution and frame of the Moral System. 

]^ot the least prominent amid this group of writers was 
Bp. Cumberland, whose noted work, " De Legibus Haiuroi 
Disquisitio Philosophica,^^ appeared in 1672. In this he 
traced obligation to its basis in the very nature of man and 
the constitution of human society, which indicated plainly the 
intention and will of their divine author, publishing in fact 
that law of duty to which moral agents are subject. Succes- 
sive editions of the original work (Maxwell's, with additions, 
172T; Towers', 1750), and of Tyrrell's abridgement of it 
(1692 and 1701), gave its views a wide currency, and in these 
some of the arguments of Bishop Butler are anticipated. 

Confessing his indebtedness to Cumberland, the scope of 
whose argument he endorsed. Dr. Samuel Parker, in 1681, 
published his " Demonstration of the Law of ISTature and of 
the Christian Beligion." The object he had in view was 
much the same with that of the "Analogy" of Butler, and 
he pursues a method not dissimilar. In establishing the Law 
of ]5Tature, he really expounds the moral constitution of na- 



paekek's " demonsteation." 33 

ture, tracing it to its divine original, and showing that its 
laws are invested with a divine authority. His professed 
object is " to discover that model of government " which God 
has established, "and those laws that He has prescribed to 
ns, and those sanctions by which He has recommended them 
to our practice." He holds that "if the nature of things 
were made and contrived by a wise and intelligent cause, 
that proposed to Himself some design in the contrivance of 
every part, then whatever effects result from the nature of 
things, as they stand contrived and constituted by Him, are 
to be ultimately resolved into His providence ;" and again, 
that " if it can be proved that the Author of nature has signi- 
fied any certain rules of life to mankind by the very order 
and frame of nature, and that He has further made them obli- 
gatory to all the world by making the same necessary con- 
nection between the duty and the reward, as there is between 
every natural cause and effect, their obligation will be estab- 
lished on no weaker grounds or proofs than of certain demon- 
stration, and we shall have the same assurance that they are 
designed for the rules of our actions, as we can have that any 
natural cause was ordained to produce its natural effect, and 
it will be as manifest from the whole constitution of nature, 
when it is considered and reflected upon, that G-od intended 
mankind should govern themselves by such certain principles, 
as it is the office of the sun to give light to the world." 

The author, in carrying out his design, essays to prove, first, 
the publication, and secondly, the sanction of the Laws of 
J^ature. These laws, he contends, are " dravm forth into use 
and bound upon the conscience, not by any express voice or 
immediate impression of the legislator, but by virtue of the 
workings of our own minds and the unavoidable results of 
our own consciences." Yet " it matters not whether the nat- 
ural law be written upon the mind of man, or the nature of 
things." " The best and easiest way to find out the rules 
and methods of God's government, is to reflect upon the nat- 
ural order and tendency of things, for that being altogether 
contrived and designed by Himself, it manifestly discovers 
to all that arc able to observe the connection between causes 
and effects, what He principally intends and aims at." 
3 



34: WILKINS AND TILLOTSON. 

The way is thus prepared to show, from the nature and 
tendency of human actions, the plan of God's natural govern- 
ment over men, and that the rewards of duty and virtue, and 
the penalties of wrong-doing and vice, making themselves 
manifest and palpable to human observation, are a real and 
most impressive publication of the moral law of nature. 

There are sentences and paragraphs in Bishop Parker's 
work that, read by themselves, might be mistaken for extracts 
from Butler's " Analogy." He even goes so far as to say — • 
following Grotius' line of thought — that " though we should 
remove the Divine Providence out of the world," still the 
necessities of men, in their social relations, in the matter of 
property, for instance, will, through " the natural constitution 
of things," " direct every man to eoniine his desires," etc. 
So that, though men should deny a Providence, or even the 
being of a God, they would yet find themselves under a con- 
stitution of things that was moral, and which of necessity im- 
posed moral obligation on voluntary intelligent agents. 

Somewhat similar in scope with the work of Bishop Parker, 
v/ere some of the Discourses of Dr. Isaac Barrow, Dr. Robert 
South, Archbishop Tillotson (1671, 16Y8, 1686, 1691), and a 
work of some note by Bishop Wilkin s, published in 16T5 
(new editions, 1678, 1683, 1693, 1704, etc.), entitled, " The 
Principles and Duties of Natural Religion," with a Preface 
by Archbishop Tillotson. It contained professedly a formal 
statement of the principles of reason, or natural law, applica- 
ble to the sphere of religion, while it vindicated" the doctrines 
in regard to the being and attributes of God, and the provi- 
dential sanctions of duty, common alike to natural and re- 
vealed religion. The foundation of these doctrines is shown 
to be in the nature and reason of mankind, while moral duties 
are seen to be based upon " natural and indispensable obli- 
gation." 

In his Preface, Archbishop Tillotson remarks : " Certainly 
it is a thing of very considerable use, rightly to understand 
the natural obligation of moral duties, and how necessarily 
they flow from the consideration of God and of ourselves. For 
it is a great mistake to think that the obligation of them doth 
solely depend upon the Revelation of God's will made to us 



LOCKE. BLOUNT. 35 

in tlie Holy Scriptures. It is plain tliat mankind was always 
under a law, even before God had made any external and 
extraordinary revelation ; else, Iiow shall God judge the world ? 
... It is nevertheless very useful for us to consider the pri- 
mary and natural obligation to piety and virtue, which we 
commonly call the Law of IN^ature ; this being every whit as 
much the Law of God as the Revelation of Llis will in His 
"Word." 



LOCKE. TOLAND. COLLINS. TINDAL. 

Quite a number of writers on ISTatural Religion had been 
less guarded than Bishop Parker, or even Richard Baxter, 
going so far, indeed, as to assume that the Law of JSTature 
was innate, or written upon the heart. The existence of a 
God was supposed to be one of the truths which might be 
traced among the ideas which the soul possessed by original 
intuition. To this view, Locke, in his work on the " Human 
Understanding" (1689), declared his opposition, and in his 
rejection of the theory of innate ideas, he was very generally 
followed, though sometimes with evident reluctance, by subse- 
quent writers. He did not on this -ground, however, reject 
the Law of l^ature, but found it where Bishop Parker had 
done, in the constitution of things manifesting authoritatively 
the will of its Author. 

A few years later, Locke brought out his work, entitled 
"Reasonableness of Christianity" (Second Edition, 1696). 
More guarded than some other writers, he was not disposed to 
consider the Law of ]^ature sufficient for the necessities of men 
without a Divine Revelation, He was doubtless led to write 
his treatise by what he regarded as the dangerous tendency 
of the " Oracles of Reason," and other writings of the noted 
deist, Charles Blount (f 1693). Blount adopted the principles 
of Lord Herbert, as to the sufficiency of the Law of N^ature, 
and he was able to render his position plausible, by the rash 



36 KEASON AND KEVELATION. 

or unguarded utterances of quite a list of Christian writers, 
not the least noted of whom was Dr. Thomas Burnet, who 
subsequently sought to recall what he had uttered, when he 
saw the use that was made of it. 

Indeed, some of the champions of revelation against athe- 
ism and infidelity, had gone so far in asserting that the Law 
of ISTature could be " demonstrated," and had so exalted the 
power of Reason to establish principles which had been 
called in question by the disciples of Hobbes, as to prepare 
the way for a reaction, and excite a jealousy of the champions 
of Revelation,who had called Platonism and ancient philosophy 
to their aid. "When Archbishop Tillotson, fully justified from 
his own point of view, could declare that "nothing contained 
in the Word of God, or in any pretended revelation from 
Him, can be interpreted to dissolve the obligation of moral 
duties plainly required by the law of nature;" when Pri- 
deaux, in his Letter to Deists, appended to his " Life of Ma- 
homet," at this same date, could throw out the challenge, 
" Let what is written in all the books of the ISTew Testament 
be tried by that which is the touch-stone of all religions — I 
mean, that religion of nature and reason which God has writ- 
ten in the hearts of every one of us from the first creation; 
•and if it varies from it in any one particular ; if it prescribes 
any one thing which may in the minutest circumstances 
thereof be contrary to its righteousness, I will then acknowl- 
edge this to be an argument against us, strong enough to 
overthrow the whole cause ;" wlien Bishop Sherlock could 
assert that " the gospel was the republication of the Law of 
^Nature," that " the religion of the gospel is the true religion 
of reason and nature " — it is evident that, however guarded 
or qualified by the context such expressions might be, they 
seemed even to invite the sceptical feeling of the age to avail 
itself of the challenge. 

Two books, v/hich reflect quite significantly different as- 
pects of the controversy, appeared at almost the same time ; 
one by Locke, already mentioned, the other by John Toland, 
who claimed to be his friend and to adopt his principles, 
while in the title of his book he parodied that of Locke. The 
latter vindicated " The Reasonableness of Christianity." The 



LOCKE AND TOLA.ND. 37 

former put forth the proposition, " Christianity not Myste- 
rious." 

Locke asserted a Law of ^Tature, but did not admit its suf- 
ficiency, at least, to the extent maintained by soAe who fa-, 
vored the theory of innate ideas. " Such a body of ethics," 
he said, of the extreme assertions of some writers, " such a 
body of ethics, proved to be the Law of Nature from princi- 
ples of reason, and reaching all the duties of life, I think 
nobody will say the world had before our Saviour's time." 
And as to the Law of I^ature itself, he contends that it would 
scarcely have been expanded and set forth as it had been, but 
for a light which human reason alone never would have 
afforded. " Many are beholden -to Kevelation who do not 
acknowledge it. 'Tis no diminishing to Revelation that rea- 
son gives its suffrage, too, to the traths Revelation has dis- 
covered. But 'tis our mistake to think, that because reason 
confirms them to us, we had the first certain knowledge of 
them from thence, and in that clear evidence we now possess 
them. The contrary is manifest in the defective morality of 
the Gentiles before our Saviour's time. .... Philosophy 
seemed to have spent its strength, and done its utmost. . . . 
He that travels the roads now, applauds his own strength and 
legs, that have carried him so far in such a scantling of time, 
and ascribes all to his own vigor, little considering how much 
he owes to their pains who cleared the woods, drained the 
bogs, built the bridges, and made the ways passable ; without 
which he might have toiled much with little progress." 

Toland, claiming a friendship w^th Locke, which the latter 
repudiated, proposed to push the theory of the Reasonableness 
of Christianity to an extreme, and strip it of everything myste- 
rious. Lideed, he left it only a modified Deism. So he was 
understood to do, at least by his contemporaries. The Irish 
Parliament — he had proceeded to Ireland after the publica- 
tion of his book — devoted it to the flames, and the odium he 
had incurred was reflected back upon Locke. The replies to 
him were numerous. Before 1760, they had amounted to 
more than fifty. Some of these, however, were directed 
against his subsequent publications, among which was his 
PantheistiGon, with his " Pantheist Liturgy," in which 



38 COLLINS. 

Cicero's definition of the Law of ITatiire had a conspicuous 
place. 

In 1707, another ymter, in sympathy with Toland, and 
who had Treally enjoyed the friendship and confidence of 
Locke, appeared on the scene. This was Anthony Collins. 
His book was entitled, an " Essay concerning the use of Rea- 
son in Propositions, the Evidence whereof depends upon Hu- 
man Testimony." It was followed in 1713, by his " Discourse 
on Free Thinking, occasioned by the rise and growth of a 
sect called Free Thinkers." Assuming Heason to be the stand- 
ard by which Revelation is to be tried, he indulges in a large 
latitude of charges and insinuations against the sacred writings, 
and, although answered by Bishop Iloadly, and convicted of 
gross misrepresentations and mistakes by Dr. Bentley, under 
the character of PhUeleutheriis JLi-psiensis, he returned to the 
attack in 1724, in his " Discourse on the Grounds and Rea- 
sons of the Christian Religion." He was answered in 1725, 
by Dr. and also by Bishop Chandler, as well as Sykes, Whis- 
ton, Sherlock, Lowman, Jeffrey, and others. The controversy 
was still fresh when (1727-1729) Mr. Woolston brought out 
successively his six discourses on the " Miracles of our Sav- 
iour," in which he casts discredit on the narratives of the 
Evangelists, as full of " improbabilities, incredibilities, and 
great absurdities." He was answered by Bishops Gibson and 
Pearce, by Ray, Smallbook, Stevenson, Atkinson, Browne, 
and others ; but the most memorable works that grew out of 
this phase of the controversy, were (1729) Dr. Sherlock's 
" Trial of the "Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus," and 
Dr. Lardnei^'s " Yindication of those of our blessed Saviour's 
Miracles, in answer to the Objections of Mr. Woolston's Fifth 
Discourse," etc., both published in 1729. 

The controversy had tended to cover a broader field than 
had been occupied by Toland and Collins in their first publi- 
cations. But a new assailant of Christianity now appeared, 
who endeavored to revive the old claim of the superiority of 
the Law of iN'ature to any " external " revelation. This was 
Matthew Tindal, who, adopting the tactics of Toland, gave to 
the world (1730) his noted work, " Christianity as Old as the 
Creation." In a more decorous style than Woolston or Col- 



TINDAL. 39 

lins, and with great skill in argument, he assumed to prove 
that, as the Law of IsTature was coeval with the Creation, and 
that, as the law of God, it is perfect and immutable, it cannot 
be superseded by Christianity, and that Christianity, coming 
as a revelation from the same source, cannot modify or repeal 
that perfect and immutable law. The inference which the 
author would evidently keep prominent is, that whatever in 
the Christian System does not accord with reason or the Law 
of Kature, is to be rejected. 

The plausibility of his argument is seen, when he asks, 
" When men, in defending their own, or attacking other tra- 
ditionary religions, have recourse to the nature or reason of 
things, does not that show they believe the truth of all tradi- 
tionary religions is to be tried by it, as being that wdiich must 
tell them what is true or false in religion ? And were there not 
some truths relating to religion of themselves so evident, as 
that all must agree in them, nothing relating to religion could 
be proved ; everything would want a further proof ; and if there 
are such evident truths, must not all others be tried by their 
agreement with them ? And are not these the tests by which we 
are to distinguish the only true religion from the many false 
ones ? And do not all parties alike own that there are such 
tests drawn from the nature of things, each crying their 
religion contains everything worthy, and nothing unworthy, 
of having God for its author ; thereby confessing that reason 
enables them to tell what is worthy of having God for its 
author ? And if reason tells them this, does it not tell them 
everything that God can be supposed to require ? " 

Tindal was answered by Bishop Gibson in a pastoral letter, 
by Dr. Thomas Burnet, Dr. Waterland, Law, Jackson, Steb- 
bins, Balguy (Second Letter to a Deist), Atkey, Foster, Cony- 
beare, Simon Browne, Leland, and others. Some of these, 
while leaving the Law of Nature unquestioned, emphasized 
the fact, that although that lavv^ might answer the necessities 
of a sinless race, the new condition of things introduced by 
the apostacy, demanded the revelation of provisions for hu- 
man recovery, of which the Law of l^ature gave no hint or 
suggestion. 

Scarcely any work in English literature has been greeted 



40 WOLLASTON. 

by a larger number of refutations than Tindal's. The antago- 
nists of Hobbes and Toland may possibly rival those provoked 
by " Christianity as Old as Creation." But its popularity, or 
rather the large measure of public attention which it com- 
manded, was due doubtless less to its ability, or the plausible 
insidiousness of its attack upon revelation, than to the circum- 
stances in which it appeared. It was an able summing up of 
what had been said in a controversy that had originated in 
the writings of Lord Herbert and Hobbes, and had now con- 
tinued at intervals for half a century, in which the Law of 
^Nature had been alternately glorified and depreciated, but in 
which much that Tindal advanced, seemed justified by such 
writers as Tillotson, Parker, and Clarke. 

But, as if to afford Tindal a new vantage ground for his 
argument, and indeed, to prepare the way for his work, there 
had been published in 1724, the very year of the author's 
death, a treatise which, in the class of writings to which it 
belonged, commanded an almost unprecedented degree of 
popularity. This was " The Religion of l^ature Delineated," 
published anonymously, but which was soon known to be by 
Wm.Wollaston, somewhat eminent as a scholar, and at one time 
a clergyman of the English Church. In the course of a few 
years, ten thousand copies of it had been circulated, the fifth 
edition of it appearing in 1Y31, and the seventh in 1T50. 
This work emphasized the precepts of the Law of JSTature, 
and the obligations of truth, reason, and virtue, while it made 
no mention of revealed religion. It might even by a partial 
judgment be considered as an expanded system of that The- 
ism, of which Lord Llerbert, and Blount after him, had laid 
down the fundamental articles. Lord Bolingbroke, however, 
called it a " strange theism, as dogmatical and absurd as arti- 
ficial theology," and spared no pains to make his assertion 
good. Unquestionably, it was the most elaborate exposition 
of the ■" Religion of Hature " that had yet appeared. 



POPE. 41 



YI. 



r'a " 



POPE S "■ ESSAY ON MAN. 

It can excite no surprise that Wollaston's " Religion of 
!N^ature Delineated " proved far from acceptable to a man 
like Lord Bolingbroke, whose theory of a Providence was 
scarcely up to the level of Aristotle's, and who found in it a 
very close approximation to the teachings of revelation. ITot 
yet prepared to give the world his views over his own name, 
he instilled them into tlie mind of Alexander Pope, who 
apostrophized him as 

" My guide, philosopher and friend;" 

and in his " Essay on Man," lent the charm of his mellifluous 
couplets to a philosophy which was far from being original 
with himself. 

We can well believe that for some of the better portions 
of the Essay, Pope was indebted in some measure to the 
influence of Bishop Berkeley, whose " Alciphron ; or. The 
Minute Philosopher," was published in the same year with 
the Essay, and in which some of the same topics were 
discussed in a style worthy of one who has sometimes been 
called the modem Plato. Berkeley had recently returned 
from America, and for several months resided in London, pre- 
vious to the publication of Pope's Essay. During this period 
he was on intimate terms with Pope. The two authors must 
have conferred together on the topics common to their two 
books, both of which indicate in an almost equal degree the 
tastes and topics of discussion Vv^hich then prevailed. 

The Essay, indeed, reflects the author's familiarity with 
the controversy of the day, and, while forfeiting credit for 
any great originality, is enriched with sentiments gleaned 
from a mde range of reading. The thoughts, and even the 
language of WoUaston, appear in it, and Mandeville's " Fable 
of the Bees ; or, Private Yices made Public Benefits " (Second 
Part, 1Y28), supplies it illustrations. Its professed object is 
" to vindicate the ways of God to man." In common with 
many champions of revelation, Pope insisted that man's 



42 pope's " ESSAT ON MAN." 

limited knowledge rendered him an incompetent judge of 
the methods of a universal providence ; that, 

" Eespecting man, whatever wrong we eaU, 
May, must be right, as relative to all;" 

that it is man's duty to " hope humblj," to repress his " rea- 
soning pride j" that general laws, which sometimes involve 
indiscriminate calamities, are a necessity ; that the " dread 
order " of the universe requires man to submit to the lot of 
weakness and imperfection that has been assigned him ; that 
it becomes him to study rather his own condition and powers, 
than to scan with presumptuous criticism the secret plans of 
God ; that in the balanced nature of man, where passion im- 
pels and reason guides, we find a wisdom analogous to that 
which in nature gives us calm and tempest, sunshine and 
storm ; that every state has its satisfactions, and that Heaven 
makes human vanity and vices — often akin to virtues — con- 
tribute to the general welfare ; in fact, 

' ' Building on wants and on defects of mind 
The joy, the peace and glory of mankind." * 

In his third and fourth Epistles, the poet is quite discur- 
sive, discussing the origin of society, and the relation of rea- 
son, instinct and self-love to it, and exhibiting also the rela- 
tions of happiness to virtue on the one hand, and to general 
laws on the other ; the result of which is, that man's wisdom 
and well-being are found in his conformity to the order which 
Providence has established. 

The Essay, so far as it is connected with the controversy 
then going on, may be regarded as a vindication of the sys- 
tem of things in which man finds himself placed by an infi- 
nite and all-wise Providence. There is much, of course, which 
is somewhat remotely connected mth what may be considered 
the direct argument, but there is also much which the Theist 
— of whatever school — would accept as a plausible, if not 

* It is in this connection that the poet shows that Bernard Mandeville's " Fahle 
of the Bees ; or, Private Vices made Public Benefits " — the second part published 
in 1728 — had tended to shape his views. Ho speaks of " one man's weakness " 
becoming " the strength of all," and then adds, 

" Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally 
The comiaon interest, or endear the tie." 



OBJECTIONS MET. 43 

fully satisfactory, justification of those dispensations of Provi- 
dence by which man is subject to weakness, limited knowl- 
edge, accidental calamity, and apparent injustice. 

The importance of the " Essay on Man," in this connection, 
is not in any originality or profundity of its views, but in the 
fact that it reflects on so many points' the current opinions of 
a certain class then most deeply interested in the general the- 
istic discussion. Familiar with the publications of the day, 
and especially of those men, who, like Tindal, called them- 
selves Christian Deists, Pope scarcely needed the suggestions 
or teachings of Bolingbroke, to furnish him the materials of 
an Essay which simply embodied, in elegant rhythm, the 
most striking thoughts which had been elaborately and re- 
peatedly presented by the most popular writers on natural 
law and religion. He met the objections of the Atheist 
against the course of nature^ sometimes in a most effective 
and conclusive manner; and as some of these objections — 
those especially which respected the calamities of human life, 
and the seeming inequality of the dispensations of Provi- 
dence — were analogous to objections urged against certain 
doctrines of revelation, it was natural that the champions of 
the latter, assuming the vindication of the course of nature 
to be complete, should be led to maintain that the divine 
authority of revelation could not be shaken by objections 
already shattered by such vindication. 

It is unnecessary to cite extensively the passages in which 
Pope concentrates the force of his argument. His reference 
to " The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day," prepares the 
way for the exclamation, 

" O blindness to the future kindly given, 
That each may fill the circle marked by heaven." 

The adaptation of man's faculties to his sphere, and the 
futility of the objection that they are not more perfect, are 
set forth thus : 

' ' Why has not man a microscopic eye ? 
For this plain reason, man's not a fly." 

The necessary subordination of individual interest to the com- 
mon welfare, is illustrated by a passage not the less pertinent 



44 pope's CONCLUSION". 

that it may have been suggested by the language of the 
Apostle Paul, or borrowed from Roman history : 

' ' Wliat if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, 
Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head ? 
What if the head, the eye or ear repined 
To serve, mere engines to the ruling mind ? 
Just as absurd for any part to claim 
To be another in this general frame ; 
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains 
The great directing Mind of all ordains." 

It is thus that Pope reaches the conclusion summed up in 
the couplet, 

" In spite of pride, in erring Reason's spite, 
One truth is clear, whatever is, is rig?it." 

A mind less acute than Bishop Butler's, might discover in 
this conclusion — applicable to the course of nature, as it re- 
spects man — a vantage-ground on which to base an argument 
that revealed religion could not be assailed by objections 
which were already shown to be invalid when urged against 
the course of nature. The very attempt made by Tindal and 
other successors of Lord Herbert, to exalt natural religion to 
a level with Christianity, as well as to establish it on unas- 
sailable grounds, had really furnished a basis of assumption 
upon which the champion of revealed religion might rest his 
argument. He had only to turn the admissions of DeistG, at 
certain vital points, against themselves, and this was the task 
so triumphantly executed by Bishop Butler. But during the 
four years which intervened between the publication of the 
" Essay on Man " and Butler's "Analogy " (1T36), there appeared 
a large number of controversial publications, several of which 
deserve mention in this connection. Among those who re- 
plied to Tindal, one of the most prominent was the Kev. Dr. 
James Foster, to whom Pope no doubt was considerably in- 
debted, and to whom he pays the high tribute, 

" Let modest Foster, if he will, excel 
Ten metropohtans in preaching well." 

Among Foster's discourses, delivered at this period from his 
pulpit, we meet such as "' The "Wisdom of God in the Yarious 



REPLIES TO TINDAL. 45 

Ranks and Subordinations of Human Life," " The Distinct 
Offices and Uses of Eeason and Eevelation," " The True 
Ground of the Argument from Keason for a Future State," 
not to mention his volumes of " Discourses on all the Princi- 
pal Branches of ISTatural Keligion and Social Yirtue." 

Other replies to Tindal of special note were published by 
Conybeare, afterward Bishop of Bristol, where he succeeded 
Butler; by Bishop Peter Browne, whose "Things Divine 
and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Things I^atu- 
ral and Human " (1733), must have furnished Butler some 
suggestions for his work ; and by Dr. John Leland, who had 
carefully studied the progress of the controversy. Beside 
these, there were numerous other publications of the day 
bearing upon tlie same subject, as Law's annotated edition of 
Archbishop King on the " Origin of Evil" (1732), treatises by 
Chubb, Jackson, CoUiber, Conyers Place, and Duncan Forbes. 
It is only by the study of the controversy, as illustrated by 
this class of publications, that we can be prepared to appre- 
ciate the task undertaken by Butler in his " Analogy." But 
incidental to the main controversy, discussions arose on ques- 
tions which claimed some recognition in Butler's speculations. 
To these we must now attend. • 



YII. 

butler's nOIEDIATE PREDECESSORS AND CONTEMPORARIES. 

The " Lecture," established by the Hon. Pobert Boyle, and 
designed to provide for an annual course of sermons in vindi- 
cation of the fundamental truths of the Christian religion, 
dates from 1691. It gave occasion, during subsequent years, 
for the publication of a large number of volumes, some of 
them of very marked ability, in which the leading religious 
questions of the time are elaborately discussed. They take 
up — beside the topics more directly connected with the Deistic 
controversy — such subjects as the Being of God, the immor- 
tality of the soul, the wise order of the world, the divine 



4:6 TOPICS OF THE BOYLE LECTURES. 

attributes, including tlie vindication of Goodness against tlie 
cavils of objectors. 

These subjects were not arbitrarily cbosen. The specula- 
tions of Descartes, Spinoza, Bayle, Malebranche, and Leibnitz 
on the continent, had excited the attention of English philoso- 
phers and divines, originating new lines of thought, tending 
at length to overshadow the importance of Hobbes' peculiar 
speculations. The Pantheism of Spinoza was adverted upon 
among others, by John Howe, in the Second Part of his " Liv- 
ing Temple," and by Dr. Samuel Clarke in his "Boyle Lec- 
ture Sermons" (1704, 1Y05). Bayle, in his writings, had 
seemed disposed to revive the Manichean theory of the Origin 
of Evil, and was met by Leibnitz in his " Theodicy," and by 
Archbishop King in his " Origin of Evil " (1Y02). Some fifteen 
years later, the discussion was resumed by Dr. John Clarke, 
in his " Sermons " at the Boyle Lectures. 

John Locke, distrusting the assumptions of the too zealous 
champions of natural religion, disputed the existence of innate 
ideas, and, under the influence of IN^ewton's discovery of the 
law of gravitation, asserted that it could not be disproved that 
God might make matter cogitative, or add to it the faculty of 
cogitation, as he had added the power of gravitation. Bishop 
Stillingfleet's chaplains, Humphrey Hody (1694), and the 
learned Richard Bentley (1691) — the first in a work on the 
"Resurrection of the Body," and the last in his "Boyle 
Lecture Sermons " — were disposed to contest the principles of 
Locke, the latter elaborately refuting them, and at length the 
Bishop himself (1698, 1699) took the field, and several con- 
troversial letters were exchanged between him and Locke. 
The latter lost no credit in this conflict with his able and titled 
opponent, and to his last letter the Bishop made no reply. 

Much attention was drawn to the subject. The result was 
soon witnessed in the publications of Dr. Coward, who pushed 
Locke's positions to an extreme, inconsistent with the philoso- 
pher's admission, that the soul was probably immaterial. He 
was answered by Turner, Broughton, Assheton, and others, 
and his books were burned by the common hangman, by order 
of Parliament. But in 1T06, Dr. Henry Dodwell published 
his " Epistolatory Discourse, j)roving that the Soul is naturally 



DODWELL. THE KOTAL, SOCIETY. 47 

Mortal," and tliat its immortality is secured only by tlie bap- 
tismal spirit. Dodwell was answered by E. Cbisbiill, Dr. 
Samuel Clarke, Turner, Whitby, Parker, Miller, l^orris, and 
others. Clarke was the most famous of these, and Collins the 
Deist, volunteered to meet him on the side of Dodwell. Sev- 
eral letters were interchanged, and in the issue, Clarke's supe- 
riority in the argument was manifest. In the course of the 
discussion, Clarke laid great stress on that indisGerptibility of 
consciousness, which Butler has so prominently introduced 
into his " Analogy." From this time on, the immateriality, 
or the immortality of the soul, on the grounds of natural 
religion, was no longer openly called in question. Such was 
the state of things when Butler prepared his "Analogy." 

Of other lines of discussion converging to the issue met in 
the " Analogy," may be mentioned those which took up the 
relation of reason to faith ; those which dwelt upon the evi- 
dences of divine design in the frame-work of nature and the 
order of the world, and those which directed attention to the 
foundation of moral obligation, including the relative claims 
of moral and positive duties. The first of these were involved, 
to a large extent, in the Deistic controversy, and need not here 
specifically be retraced. The second originated in the Royal 
Society, and the labors of Robert Boyle, the discoveries of 
Kewton, the studies of naturalists like Grew, Ray, and Dur- 
ham, and at times seemed to present rival claims to the specu- 
lations of the Cambridge Platonists. We find their results 
in the writings of men who devoted their attention, to some 
considerable extent, to natural theology — Barrow, Bates, Howe, 
Tillotson, and many others, including some of the " Boyle 
lecturers." It was in sympathy with these, rather than with 
the Cambridge Platonists, that Theophilus Gale, Dr. Daniel 
"Whitby, and Thomas Halyburton depreciated the sufficiency 
and achievements of human reason, and set forth the incon- 
gruities and inconsistencies of ancient philosophy. 

Locke's rejection of the long-accepted theory of innate ideas, 
logically overthrew the foundation upon which a large class of 
writers had been disposed to rest the Law of l!^ature and 
moral obligation. It remained to find a substitute. Two 
tendencies were soon manifest, the cne represented by Lord 



48 SHATTESBUET. HUTCHESOjS'. CLAEKE. 

Sliaftesbmy, who, tlioiigli an admirer and pupil of Locke, 
was not disposed blindly to follow his lead ; and the other by 
Dr. Samuel Clarke, who presented his views in his discourses 
at the Boyle Lecture. Shaftesbury, who had constructed a 
system of optimism (1699) somewhat resembling Leibnitz's 
Iheodicy (ITIO), wished to find a sanction for virtue, inde- 
pendent of the rewards or penalties of a future state. These, 
he maintained, appealed to the selfish principle, and in the 
obedience which they were instrumental to secure, there was 
no merit. He sought, therefore, and imagined that he found, 
in the human constitution a moral sense, which was to give 
the law to human action. By this, proposed courses of action 
were to be put to the test, and approved or condemned. 
Francis Hutcheson, in successive publications (1Y25, 1728), 
adopting substantially the same view, secured for it wide pub- 
licity and acceptance. Hutcheson's " Enquiry" was published 
in 1Y25 (Second Edition, 1726), and immediately excited at- 
tention. It came in collision with the positions taken by Dr. 
Samuel Clarke in his " Discourse concerning the Unchange- 
able Obligations of Natural Keligion," published in 1706, and 
reaching its eighth edition in 1732. In this discourse, Clarke 
maintained that "the eternal and necessary different relations 
which different things have to each other, lay the foundation 
for the fitness or unfitness of certain actions to these relations. 
The congruity of an action to the circumstances or relations 
of the agent is virtue ; its incongruity is vice." He remarks 
that those who found all moral obligation ultimately in the 
will of God, must recur at length to the same thing ; only 
"they do not clearly explain how the nature and will of God 
HimseK must be necessarily good and just." * 

In 1731, a posthumous treatise of Cudworth, " Concerning 
Eternal and Immutable Morality," was published by Chand- 
ler, Butler's predecessor, as Bishop of Durham, and was found 

"• Sir James Mackintosli lias remarked tliat we owe the Dissertation on the 
Nature of Virtue which Butler annexed to his "Analogy" to the assertion of 
Hutcheson — " contradicted by erery man's feelings " — that prudence, so long as 
it regards ourselves^ cannot be moi'ally approved. He adds also : " He is charge- 
able, like Butler, with a vicious circle, in describing virtuous acts as those which 
are approved \)j the moral sense, v/hile he at the same time describes the moral 
sense as the faculty which perceives and feels the morality of actions." 



WOLLASTON. BALGUY. 49 

to be in substantial agreement with the positions taken by 
Clarke. Both were open to a criticism which Puffendorf had 
made on Grotius, that he alleged "for a proof of the inde- 
pendency of some of the laws of nature, the necessary agree- 
ment or disagreement of things to rational and social nature." 
In this, however, Grotius had but copied Cicero, while he was 
in agreement with Lord Herbert. 

In 1729, on the publication of Dr. Clarke's " Exposition of 
the Church Catechism," he came into collision with Dr. Daniel 
Waterland. His position here was that "the Sacrament of 
the Lord's Supper and other positive institutions had the 
nature only of means to an end, and that, therefore, they 
were never to be compared with moral virtues, nor can ever 
be of any use or benefit without them," etc. 

The death of Dr. Clarke left the task of defending these 
positions to devolve on others. Dr. A. A. Sykes replied to 
Waterland, and there were rejoinders on each side. Thomas 
Chubb, and Thomas Jackson (editor of Stephen's Thesaurus)^ 
joined in the discussion, the former on Dr. Clarke's side ; the 
latter on Dr. Waterland's. Like several other writers of the 
time, Jackson (1Y31) represented man's chief concern to be 
" to study the means of his own happiness." The happiness 
of His creatures is God's object in calling them into being, 
and to this end a detenninate method was adopted, dependent 
upon His will. The author then proceeds to refute " the no- 
tion of Dr. Clarke and his followers," with whom he classes 
Bishop Butler, quoting from one of his sermons. 

Clarke's view was substantially adopted, not only by deisti- 
cal writers like Chubb and Tindal, but by many others. "Wol- 
laston modified it (1T24) by sabstituting " the truth " in place 
of " the reason " of things, and thus constructed his ingenious 
theory of the foundation of morals. Dr. John Balguy, Clarke's 
ablest successor, shortly after the appearance of Hutcheson's 
"Enquiry" (1Y25), published his first "Letter to a Deist," in 
which he criticised the views of Lord Shaftesbury, and indi- 
cated his dissent from Hutcheson, who had largely adopted 
them. Agreeing on some points with Shaftesbury, he strongly 
dissented from him on others. He would not allow that re- 
wards and penalties were not serviceable to the cause of vir- 
4 



50 balguy's teeatises. 

tiie, although he conceded that the merit of an act was propor- 
tioned to its disinterestedness. At the same time — and this 
was a year previous to the publication of Butler's sermons — 
he said, " I can by no means approve of that doctrine which 

resolves all morality into self-interest Are there no 

propensities, no inclinations in our nature, drawing us, as it 
were, out of ourselves, in behalf of our fellow-creatures, even 
to the neglect of what we call self -ad vantage ? " Here he ac- 
corded with Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. For virtue, also, 
apart from its rewards, he claimed "an intrinsic goodness" 
that should determine our preference. The "taste" scheme 
of Shaftesbury, he utterly rejected, and along with it the 
"moral sense" of Hutcheson, as making morality dependent 
on the accidental presence, or absence, vigor or weakness, of a 
somewhat questionable instinct. In 1Y28, he presented his 
views more fully in "The Foundation of Moral Goodness," 
in which he aimed to show that virtue could find no proper 
basis in instincts or affections, however these might sometimes 
enforce viiiuoas motives. He claimed, also, that moral good 
might be an end in itself, as well as the natural good, or hap- 
piness, which Hutcheson favored. In 1Y30, another pamphlet 
of his appeared, entitled " Divine Eectitude," etc. In this, 
he resolved all the divine perfections into a single moral 
quality ; namely, " God's determining Himself by 'moral fit- 
ness^ or, acting perpetually according to the truth, nature, 
and reason of things.'''' He accepted the view taken by But- 
ler in his sermons, then recently printed (1726), of the divine 
goodness, not as an indiscriminate benevolence, but " a wise 
regard for what is required by the reason of things, or the 
ends of government." "With such a view of the divine good- 
ness, probation harmonizes. He holds it probable, " not only 
that all men, but all moral agents whatever, are obliged to 
undergo some kind of probation." It was fitting that the 
prize to be finally bestowed, should be striven for, nor should 
the untried be rewarded like those who had been found faith- 
ful. The very idea of probation removes the objection to the 
apparently unequal allotments of the present state. 

Balguy's treatise called out a reply from the Kev. Thomas 
Bayes, F.R.S., in " Divine Benevolence ; or, an Attempt to 



EEPLY TO BATES. CONYBEARE. 61 

prove that the principal end of the Divine Providence and 
Government is the Happiness of his Creatures" (1Y31). To 
this happiness, all other objects, as those of order and beautj, 
must be subordinate. Balguy replied in " The Law of Truth ; 
or, The Obligations of Reason essential to all Eeligion," add- 
ing remarks supplementary to his previous treatise. He con- 
tended that those who ascribed perfection to the divine will, 
must mean that will as " directed, or undirected." H undi- 
rected, how could a will be said to be perfect ; if directed, by 
what, except reason and truth? Benevolence, morever, must 
be rational, as founded' on reason and produced by it, or a 
natural perfection, distinct from and independent of reason. 
In the latter case, it could be nothing more than good nature ; 
but, if guided by reason, it must have respect to the nature 
and relations of things. " The obligations of religion depend, 
and are entirely founded, on the obligations of reason," and 
the relation of positive to moral duties is instrumental, sub- 
sidiary and subordinate. The rule of truth or reason is to be 
observed for its own sake. Will, considered simply as will, 
does not and cannot impose obligation. " God's will obliges 
us only m virtue of truth." This may be acceptable to some 
unbelievers, but because they reject revelation, we need not 
reject reason. H they forsake the gospel rule, we need not 
abandon the Law of Rectitude. 

Dr. John Conybeare, Butler's successor in his bishopric, 
put forth in 1Y32 a reply to Tindal, which Warburton pro- 
nounced " the best reasoned book in the world." Li this, he 
took extended notice of the controverted question of moral 
obligation. He could not accept Balguy's views without 
grave qualification. He would admit the fitnesses of things, 
and that these fitnesses might be, " in order of conception," 
anterior to the will of God. To deny this involved difiicul- 
ties he knew not how to meet. Yet " things are fit because 
God has constituted their nature in such a way as to make 
them so," while, in dealing with His creatures, God wills things 
"because they are fit and proper." But obligation does 
not arise merely from the fitness of things, nor will inward 
satisfaction or the good tendency of an act constitute obli- 
gation. The Law of Nature is the will and command of a 



52 law's edition of " oeigin of evil." 

Being to whom we are subject. It is a law to us, because 
it is the will of One on whom we are absolutely dependent, 
and we must conform to it on some prospect we have of a 
suitable reward or punishment. 

Here we approximate to the definition of virtue given by 
Edmund Law, subsequently Bishop of Carlisle, in a disserta- 
tion prefixed to his edition of Archbishop King on " The Ori- 
gin of Evil" (1732). This dissertation, attributed to a Mr. 
Gay, aims to harmonize the views of divergent theorists and 
writers, suggesting that if they were interpreted with due 
candor, their seeming disagreements would almost disappear, 
and it would be found that acting agreeably to nature and 
reason coincides with fitness of things ; fitness of things with 
truth (Wollaston's phrase) ; truth with the common good, and 
the common good with the will of God. 

Law, therefore, or Gay, speaking in his name, holds that 
" our approbation of morality and all affections, etc., are ulti- 
mately resolvable into reason pointing out private happiness, 
and are conversant only about things apprehended to be means 
tending to this end." So " virtue is the conformity to a rule 
of life directing the actions of all rational creatures with re- 
spect to each other's happiness, to which conformity every 
one is in all cases obliged," which " obligation is the necessity 
of doing or omitting any action in order to be happy," and is 
founded on " ^the prospect of happiness." It need only be 
added that Paley, whose utilitarian definition of virtue is so 
well-known, was the chaplain of Law after the latter became 
a bishop. 

The Dissertation could not bring together extremes like 
Clark and Warburton, Balguy and Bayes. Before the close of 
the year, an anonymous pamphlet, " occasioned by some late 
writings," presumed to review the " Discourse concerning 
Yirtue and Religion." It defined obligation as " a reason 
for acting, necessarily arising in the mind of all rational and 
moral agents, according to their capacities, upon consideration 
of the true nature and circumstances of it." Rewards and 
penalties do not constitute obligation, but only its encourage- 
ment. " The v/ill of God is the only foundation and source 
of happiness and misery, but the will of God cannot possibly 



GEOVE. MOLE. 53 

be the foundation of morality, or the rule of right reason, but 
tnith only, for truth and reason necessarily oblige the will of 
God himself." " Virtue is the practice of reason in all our 
conduct, merely upon account of its being reasonable." 

In 1^34, Kev. Henry Grove, a contributor to Addison's 
" Spectator," sent forth a small treatise entitled, " Wisdom 
the First Spring of Action in the Deity." In substantial 
agreement with Balguy, he dissented from him at some 
points, and, in animadverting upon Bayes' Essay, sets forth 
the difficulties which those who reject the idea and law of 
moral fitness, will find themselves compelled to encounter. 
The use made of it by Tindal and others does not move him. 
The fundamental duties of natural religion are founded in 
reason, and sanctioned by it. Grove does not fail to rebuke 
the presumption implied in the human ignorance and weak- 
ness that venture to sit in judgment on the works or com- 
mands of God. 

Another writer, following, in the main, the line of thought 
of Balguy and Grove, was Rev. Thomas Mole, supposed to 
have been educated at the same academy where Butler and 
Seeker were trained. In 1Y32, he preached a sermon on 
" The Foundation of Moral Virtue," v/hich he defended 
against a critical assailant in " The Foundation of Moral Vir- 
tue Eeconsidered and Defended." 

He states three theories — one which " derives the nature of 
moral good and evil from the mere will and arbitrary pleas- 
ure of the First Cause" — a second, which deduces it "from 
His nature or moral perfections, or from His will, as neces- 
sarily determined by them " — a third, which makes moral 
good and evil originally and eternally diflierent in themselves ; 
naturally and necessarily what they are, independent of aU 
will or positive appointment whatever. 

Rejecting the first, he examines the second, to find that it 
must be resolved into the third, which he accepts ; in this 
adding his suifrage to that of Cudworth, Clarke, Balguy, and 
Grove. " The nature and reason of things," he contends, " is 
the foundation, and the will of God the rule, of moral vir- 
tue ;" and these may be distinguished, though not separated. 
"With those who, like Bayle, attempt to separate them, Mole 



54 • WOLLASTON KEFUTED. 

has no sympathy. Their error in this is no warrant for us to 
" feed our ignorance in order to nourisli devotion." 

Wollaston, in liis " Religion of Nature Delineated " (1^24), 
had made truth, or conformableness to it, the test of good and 
evil. He had ingeniously defended his theory, in which, if 
he had written ten years later, he might have not inappro- 
priately accepted justice, or Balguy's " Rectitude," in place 
of " Truth." His theory was assailed (1Y25) by John Clarke 
(not a brother of Dr. S. Clarke, as sometimes stated), an emi- 
nent scholar, and master of the public grammar school in 
Hull. He was not disposed to allow, that to assert things as 
they are, or to conform to them as they are, was virtuous, 
when sometimes it might be quite the reverse. Moreover, 
Wollaston's assumption — held in common with many others 
— that nothing is or can be the object of hatred or aversion in 
itself, or upon its own account, but pain and misery, and that 
happiness is the ultimate end of all our aims and designs, our 
wishes and desires, is set against his primary assumption in 
regard to truth ; for if happiness is the great end, then tmth 
must be subservient to it. 'Nor does his theory throw any 
light on the distinction between deeds of greater or less de- 
merit, so long as they are simply and equally violations of truth. 

This last position is taken also by Francis Hutcheson, in 
his general reply to Clarke, Balguy, Grove, and Wollaston. 
In 1728, he published his " Essay on the Nature and Conduct 
of the Passions and Affections," and in his third edition of 
this work (1742) he introduced his " Illustrations of the Moral 
Sense." In this, he endeavors to show that writers who oppose 
his views, really assume their truth. The very terms they 
employ imply that Sense of the nature of actions for which 
he contends. Grove, in his " Moral Philosophy " (1749), 
gives that broad meaning to the term reason, which ascribes 
to it, not merely the power of discerning good and evil, truth 
and error, but satisfaction in the exercise of its power to de- 
tect truth, in propositions or actions, which makes it include 
the moral sense of Hutcheson. Butler's use of the temi con- 
science is similarly comprehensive.* 

* It may not be amiss to add here, that what has been called " the intellectual 
theory of moral obligation," was again revived by Dr. John Taylor, in "An Ex- 



LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. COLLINS. 55 

The chapter in the " Analogy " " On the Opinion of Keces- 
sitj," has special reference to the discussion begun by Collins 
in his " Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty " 
(1715), in which he availed liimself of Dr. Samuel Clarke's 
assertion in his second course of Boyle Lecture Sermons, to 
the effect that God was necessarily just, and all His volitions 
and actions were morally necessary. Defeated as the cham- 
pion of Dodwell in his dispute with Clarke on the materiality 
of the human soul, or its natural mortality, he ventured upon 
this new issue, but only to provoke a rejoinder from his old 
antagonist which, for the time, put the matter at rest. It was 
revived, however, in 1730, by the publication of " A Y indi- 
cation of Human Libert}'^, in Answer to a Dissertation on 
Liberty and ISTecessity, by A. C, Esq.," from the pen of the 
learned chronologist, John Jackson. The latter had already 
(1725) discussed the subject in a treatise in reply to " Cato's 
Letters," and in the line of his argument presented substan- 
tially the views of Dr. Clarke, for whom Butler manifests 
great deference, and whose positions he has in the main 
adopted. 

It is in Butler's " Analogy " that all these various lines of 
discussion which we have noticed meet. This work had 
necessarily, from the very scope of it, to take most of them 
into consideration, and it is memorable especially, that it so 
ably and satisfactorily harmonizes and disposes of them. The 
history of literature scarcely presents a parallel to it in this 
respect. It is the appropriate terminus of several specific 
tracks of conti-oversy, all more or less kindred or associated ; 
all springing from the same origin, and nearly all terminating 
at the same point. 

amination of tlie Scheme of Morality advanced by Dr. Hutcheson " (1759), and 
by Dr. Richard Price in "A Review of tlie Principal Questions and Difflculties 
in Morals " (1758). The reassertion, by Taylor especially, of the existence of 
disinterested affections, in which he followed Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and But- 
ler, seems to have been with especial reference to the views of Lord Bolingbroke, 
then recently published, in which he reduced all human action to the level of 
selfish impulse. According to him, there can be ro innate moral principle. lie 
argues that all compassion for the distressed, and even the affection of parents 
for their children, proceed from the love of self, which he affirms to be the only 
great motive principle of human nature, implanted l)y Providence in the breasts 
of all men. This he maintains to be a kind of instinct, concerning which he is 
not very clear. — MacKnight' s Life of Bolingbroke, page 699. 



56 SUMMAEY OF THE CONTEOVEEST. 

The political pliase of tlie Hobbesian controversy disap- 
peared with the Kevolution of 1688. Locke's social contract 
theory was embodied iu the action of the Convention Parlia- 
ment that called "William III. to the throne. "Writers like 
Hoadly and Atterbmy contended over new issues raised by 
the patriarchal theory of Filmer and his sympathizers, but 
Tories like Harley and Bolingbroke had as little regard for 
that theory as for the speculations of the Scholastics. But the 
theological phase of the controversy was more lasting, and 
embraced a wider range of topics. 

Eetracing the course of discussion which has been pursued, 
Ave find the controversy, which substantially reaches its conclu- 
sion in Butler's " Analogy," separating itself as it proceeds, 
from the time of Hobbes, into several branches, and these — 
or nearly all of them — reunited in Butler's work. The specu- 
lations of Hobbes, together with a reaction among liberally- 
minded English divines against certain extremes of the doc- 
trinal Puritans, on the one hand, and High Church intolerance 
on the other, gave special impulse to the tendency developed 
in Cambridge Platonism. The extent to which the Platon- 
ists pushed their speculations provoked a double reaction, 
in part by the sanction which they seemed to give to the 
positions taken by Blount and Herbert, the former of Vv^hom 
reproduced the arguments of Dr. Thomas Burnet, while To- 
land cited the authority of Dr. Whichcote and others. The 
-Eoyal Society, with which Oxford was in special sympathy, 
depreciated Aristotle, and, to some extent, Plato also, in their 
zeal for the new experimental philosophy represented by Boyle 
and ITewton, while Gale, Whitby, and Halyburton especially, 
were jealous of the disposition which elevated heathen phi- 
losophy almost into rivalry with the claims of revelation. 
Hence ensued that development of the Deistic Controversy, 
in which the relative merits of reason and faith were elabo- 
rately and ably discussed. 

Meanwhile, Locke's denial of the widely-accepted doctrine 

of iimate ideas demanded a new foundation of the Law of 

Nature. Hence an investigation of the foundations of moral 

obligation was necessary. Was it individual happiness, the 

.general good, the eternal fitness and reason of things, the 



TOPICS OF CONTEOVEESY. 67 

arbitrary -will of God, the simple excellence of moral good- 
ness itself, or reward and penalty ; or was it to be sought 
under the new and more restricted definition of the " Reason " 
of the Platonists ; or in some taste, or instinct, or moral sense ? 
All these positions were severally maintained, and, when But- 
ler wTote, had been freshly presented in the writings of 
Shaftesbury, Clarke, Fiddes, Hutcheson, Balguy, Bayes, 
Grove, Law, Jackson, and many others. 

Contemporary with the early period of this branch of the 
controversy, was that which originated in Locke's assertion 
that God might make matter cogitative. Bentley and Hody, 
Stillingfleet's chaplains, as well as Stillingfleet himself, came 
forward as his antagonists, while Dodweli availed himself of 
the occasion to modify and refine Coward's Speculations, and 
to assert the natural mortality of the soul. Numerous writei's 
now appeared on both sides, Anthony Collins taking the place 
of Dodweli, and having for his too powerful antagonist Dr. 
Samuel Clarke. 

Meanwhile, the influence of Spinoza, and the Speculations 
of Bayle on the Continent, gave occasion for the Optimist 
Speculations of Shaftesbury, and " The Origin of Evil " of 
Archbishop King. Connected with this branch of the con- 
troversy were Leibnitz's "Theodicy," Toland's " Pantheisticon," 
and Dr. John Clarke's Boyle Lecture Sermons, as well as 
publications which proposed to settle whether Benevolence, 
Wisdom, or Rectitude, was " the first spring of action in the 
Deity," and what was ]3roperly understood or required by 
Divine Benevolence. 

In establishing his scheme of the fomidation of morality, 
Dr. Samuel Clarke had asserted, as we have seen, that God 
was neoessarily just. His old antagonist Collins was too 
shrevfd not to avail himseK of this assertion, and to put forth, 
as a new challenge to discussion, his work on " Liberty and 
Necessity." Clarke replied briefly, but " Cato's Letters," 
Jackson's treatise, and the productions of other writers, con- 
tinued the controversy. 

Butler surveyed the broad field, and embodied in a treatise, 
which never names a champion or antagonist, all the import- 
ant results that had been reached by his predecessors, or by 



58 butler's " ANALOGY." 

liis own acute and profound reflections. The result is a work 
that stands unique in our literature, and which is memorable 
as the summing-up of a discussion which had gone forward 
for three-fourths of a century, and had led to the publication 
of hundreds, if not thousands, of books and pamphlets. 

Later works on the same class of topics have been issued, 
some of them of marked ability, but scarcely one which does 
not confess its indebtedness to Butler. This is due in part 
to the breadth and comprehensiveness of the field of contro- 
versy which opened before him, and in part to the ability and 
effectiveness with which he performed his work. He sketched 
the course of argument which has since very generally been 
followed, with more or less originality. But the new age, with 
its new questions, demands some modification of his method, 
and a more minute examination of some points which he was 
content to assume. 



YIII. 

BISHOP butler's "analogy." 

The lapse of more than a century has only confirmed the 
estimate of Bishop Butler's work, formed by those of his own 
contemporaries who were best qualified to weigh it in critical 
scales. Sir James Mackintosh pronounced the "Analogy" 
" the most original and profound work extant in any language 
on the philosophy of religion." Bishop "Wilson, one of But- 
ler's editors, declares it has " fixed the admiration of all com- 
petent judges for nearly a century, and will continue to be 
studied so long as the language in which he wrote endures. 
The mind of a master pervades it. . . Tie takes his place with 
Bacon, and Pascal, and Kewton — those mighty geniuses who 
opened new sources of information on the most important 
Eubjects, and commanded the love and gratitude of mankind." 

Among more recent witnesses we may cite Dr. Chalmers, 
who, when asked to write something on the leaf of a Greek 
Testament which had once belonged to Bntler, traced these 
words : " Butler is in theology what Bacon is in science. The 



PEOF. FAEEAE ON BUTLEE. 59 

reigning principle of tlac latter is, tliat it is not for man to 
theorize on the works of God ; and of the former, that it is 
not for man to theorize on the ways of God. Both deferred 
alike to the certainty of experience, as being paramount to 
all the plausibilities of hypothesis; and he who attentively 
studies the writings of these great men, will find a marvellous 
concurrence of principle between a sound philosophy and a 
sound faith." 

Prof. Farrar has appropriately referred to the controversy 
with which Butler's work was connected. Of the "Analogy," 
he says : It " bears marks, if we view it as a work of art, of 
the most careful elaboration in every part. It gives few 
references to authorities ; and none but those who are well 
acquainted with the works of that time, are aware what 
internal marks it bears of extensive study of other writers, 
both infidel and Christian ; yet of such a kind as not justly to 
lead to the depreciation of Butler's originality. His work, 
wrought out thoughtfully in many years of study, and written 
leisurely in his retirement at Stanhope, was the summing up 
of the whole controversy, the final utterance on the side of the 
church concerning the philosophy of religion, when viewed 
in reference to the Deistic controversy. The style is obscure, 
for Butler never possessed a lucid style, in spite of the help 
which Seeker used to afford him in simplifying his sentences ; 
but the obscurity of the work, in a great degree, arises from 
its fullness. It is packed full of thought. Its tone and man- 
ner of handling are also characteristic of the. age."* 

It is only with the first part of the "Analogy " that we 
have here to deal. The second part is devoted largely to the 
subject of Christian evidences, while the first discusses 
exclusively those features of the moral system with which 
we are here concerned. Butler's aim is not merely to show 
that the same difiiculties, or difiiculties of the same kind, 
pertain alike to the several schemes of natural and revealed 
religion, but that the objections urged on the ground of these 
difiiculties to discredit the revealed scheme, are equally valid 
when urged against the other. If this is the case, our choice 
must lie — not between revelation on one side, and the Deistic 

* Farrar's " Bishop Butler," in Lect. to Young Men, 1863, p. 353. 



60 butler's AEGUltfENT FOR THE FUTUEE LIFE. 

sclieme, whicli Herbert, Blount, Toland, Collins, and Tindal 
liad advocated, on the other ; but between utter disbelief or 
atheism, and the acceptance of the Christian faith. 

After his introduction — in which Butler considers the in- 
dispensableness, and in certain cases, the conclusiveness of 
probable evidence — states the nature of the argument from 
analogy, and lays down the plan and scope of his work, he 
proceeds to discuss the evidence afforded by the light of 
nature in support of a future life. By selecting this as the 
first topic of his work, he secured one advantage, but lost 
another. He availed himself of the concessions of the Deists 
of his time, who admitted generally, to secm-e larger credit 
for their scheme, that the immortality of the soul might be 
evinced by human reason. To have this point established 
was an important step toward the subsequent positions which 
Butler was prepared to take. But in discussing the future 
life, before an examination of the moral system, he v/as 
necessitated to dispense with the proofs of immortality to be 
derived from this source. He was at liberty only to adduce 
what may be called the negative argument, viz., that what 
now exists will continue *to exist, or we are warranted by the 
course of nature to presume that it will, unless some sufficient 
reason can be given why it should cease to be. This argument 
would imply — as the positive argument from the intention of 
God manifest in the moral system would not — the continued 
existence of brutes after death, and to this implication, Butler 
is prepared, if necessary, to yield. He makes, however, the 
most effective use of analogy, to show the probability of con- 
tinued existence under ail changes. The different states of 
the same being, the transformation of the worm to the butter- 
fly, the change from the embryo in the egg to the bird, all 
show that identity of being may continue under very diverse 
forms. As to death, we know it only from its visible effects, 
but we cannot assume to know on what the exercise of the 
powers of the soul may depend. Conscious activity may be 
entirely suspended, as in sleep or in a swoon, without affecting 
the integrity of the conscious being. We can trace the pos- 
session of living powers up to death, but there we simply 



THE BODY THE SOUl's INSTEUMENT. 61 

cease to trace them. Wonderful changes we have ah'eadj 
survived. Diverse states of being we have ah-eadj ex- 
perienced. The assumption that death annihilates the soul, 
is the assumption that the soul is material, and as material 
corruptible. But here Butler falls bach on Clarke's argument 
of the indiscerptibility of consciousness, and while he does 
not assert it absolutely conclusive, he asserts consciousness to 
be a single indivisible power. The decay of the body, the 
loss of its members, a complete change, and even siiccessive 
changes of all the particles of which it is composed, do not 
affect the consciousness of our identity. There is no material 
atom that can be identified with our living selves. What we 
have already lost was not ourselves. What we may gain 
hereafter will not be. All the senses of the body are but 
organs or instruments. The body itself is but a complex 
organ. The eye does not explain vision any more than the 
glass which we use to aid its powers. In dreams, we perceive 
without organs. In losing a limb, we do not lose the direct- 
ing power. An artificial limb may take its place and answer 
its purpose. We may infer, therefore, that when the soul 
loses its organs, it does not necessarily lose anything of its 
own proper powers. 

It is true that death, in depriving the soul of the body as 
its instrument, robs it of sensation. Yet when, through sen- 
sation, the sonl has been furnished with ideas, it is independ- 
ent of sensation. Its powers of reason, memory and reflec- 
tion may remain, and sometimes actually do, when the senses 
are greatly impaired, if not destroyed. Even fatal diseases 
do not necessarily impair, much less destroy, the intellect. 
Why may it not continue still % 

There is nothing nnnatm-al in the change implied in a 
futm'e life. To go to new scenes and conditions is no more 
strange than to have entered upon the present. Our know- 
ledge, however, of what is natural is limited. If it were 
extended, our objections might vanish. The probabilities, 
therefore, are on the side of a future life, and, in the absence 
of counter-probabilities, should be decisive. 



62 GOD S NATURAL GOVEENMENT. 

The Author of Mature has established in the world a system 
of administration by rewards and penalties. It is a matter 
not of deduction, but of experience, that we are under 
government. To some actions pleasure is annexed ; to 
others, pain. The design of this, in very many instances, 
is plainly discoverable. We can foresee the consequences of 
our actions, and by all the risks incurred by our mistakes, are 
impelled to exercise foresight, or prudence, which is a kind 
of natural virtue. Even rashness or negligence is punished 
by evils which are beyond remedy. Yet our well-being is 
largely in our own power. With more or less clearness we 
are forewarned what course to choose, or what to shun. 

If this be ascribed to the general course of Kature, this is 
only saying that the Author of Nature exercises a uniform 
government. Our foresight of consequences is the warning 
which He gives us how to act. When those consequences 
result from the observance or violation of natural laws, they 
are of the nature of reward or punishment. That we are 
under government is, therefore, not so much a deduction 
of reason as a matter of experience. That this government 
acts by laws which execute themselves, without formal inter- 
position, only proves its perfection. The present course of 
things, therefore, is an instance of government by reward and 
penalty, analogous to the general doctrine of religion. 

Pains and penalties here are brought upon men by their 
imprudence and wilKulness. A great deal of their misery 
might have been foreseen and avoided. It often follows 
what at first was pleasurable, and sometimes is long deferred. 
Apprehension of it dies away, and at last it comes, perhaps 
suddenly, and with crushing force. Youth may be heedless, 
but that fact does not arrest the consequences of its mistake. 
Early habits may in the end prove utter ruin. Opportunities 
once afforded, pass away and can never be recovered. Seed- 
time neglected incurs the forfeit of the harvest. Folly and 
extravagance up to a certain point may admit of remedy, but 
beyond that point there is no place for repentance. Incon- 
siderateness is punished, as well as willful vice. Civil govern- 
ment also is a natural institution, and its penalties must be 
taken into account. All this is the result of general laws, 



GODS MORAL GOVEENMENT. Go 

and a matter of experience, and is so analogous to wliat 
religion teaches us of the future punishment of the wicked, 
that the penalty and the method of it may in either case be 
expressed in the same words. 

Thus the observation of the present state of things is cal- 
culated to excite apprehensions of future penalty. "When 
checks, admonitions and warnings have been long disregarded ; 
when the sad example of others' ruin has been overlooked ; 
when the long delayed catastrophe suddenly overtakes the 
transgressor ; when repentance has become vain and can only 
aggravate distress ; — the result, witnessed in suffering, want, 
shame, remorse or death, attests the fixed constitution of 
things, according to which, evil, though it may long enjoy 
immunity, is at last overtaken by retribution. 

But the government of the Author of nature is also moral. 
"We see not only prudence or imprudence visited with reward 
or penalty, but consequences are often proportioned to per- 
sonal merit or demerit. If it be asserted that God is a beinij 
of simple absolute benevolence, the assertion should be proved. 
But benevolence itself is not incompatible with veracity and 
justice, or with what we see indicating the administration of 
a righteous governor. The present state may be allowed to 
be imperfect as it respects an exact distribution of rewards 
and penalties, yet it may be plainly seen to be carried on to 
such an extent as to warrant the confidence that it will finally 
be completed. 

We see, for instance, that virtue has its own rewards, its 
peculiar satisfactions, of which vice knows nothing. If vicious 
courses have been pursued, unc^ualified pleasure may not at- 
tend upon reform. Straggles and restlessness, and habits of 
old appetites and passions, may make the effort to break from 
evil more painful than pleasant. So indulgence in evil may 
at length stifle self -reproof and the sense of shame ; but all 
this is manifestly exceptional, and is not to be urged against 
the fact that God's moral government does actually render 
men happy or miserable by rule. We are warranted by expe- 
rience to expect that good and evil will continue to be distin- 
guished by favorable or deleterious effects. Tranquillity, satis- 
faction and external advantages are the natural consequences 



64 VIETTJE AND VICE. DIVERSE EFFECTS. 

of a prudent management of ourselves and our affairs ; virtu- 
ous actions, in the natural course of things, procure peace and 
favor, while vicious are actually punished, oftentimes as mis- 
chievous to society. Even the apprehension they excite in 
the transgressor is a sort of punishment. It is nature's dec- 
laration against them. If good actions are sometimes pun- 
ished, or attended with persecution, this is not necessary in 
the sense in which it is necessary that ill actions be punished. 
But, naturally, virtue as such is rewarded, and vice as such is 
punished. Actions, distinguished from their moral quality, 
may gratify a taste or passion, and afford pleasure. But if 
vicious, this element of evil in them is not thereby rewarded 
or approved. Virtue and vice have immediate and lasting 
effects upon the mind and temper. "Where ill effects follow 
certain actions that are reflected upon as wrong, they are at- 
tended with uneasiness and self-reproach. On the other 
hand, the exercise of gratitude, friendship and benevolence 
are attended with inward peace and joy of heart. ISTor can a 
long indulgence in vice fully di'ive away the fear or appreheii- 
si on of penalty. 

Good men also befriend one another. Let a man be knowa 
to be virtuous, and he will be favored often for his charaetci 
simply. Public honor will be done him. But vice will incur 
infamy. It will provoke resentments. It will impel even to 
revolutions. It will ever be exposed to that which flows from 
a public opinion against injustice, fraud and unfair advan- 
tages. 

Domestic and civil governments are both natural institu- 
tions. Yet in the first, falsehood, injustice and ill-behavior 
are punished, and the opposite qualities commended, while 
civil government is constrained to repress what would be pre- 
judicial or fatal to itseK, as vice must necessarily be. That 
God has given us a moral nature shows that we are under 
moral government, but that He has placed us where this nature 
does and must operate is an additional proof of the fact. 

Indeed, the rewards of virtue and the punishments of vice 
are so uniform as we find them to be, in part from the fact of 
our moral nature, and in part also from the fact that each has 
so great power over others' happiness and misery. We are so 



TESTDEIS^CIES OF VIRTUE. 65 

made that well-doing brings peace, and ili-doing restlessness 
and apprehension. We cannot approve vice except when the 
moral judgment is perverted by evil habits or self-interest. 
Yice is necessarily odious, infamous and contemptible. It is 
trae that happiness and misery may seem to be inexplicably 
distributed. But this may be in the way of discipline. There 
may be good reasons why our happiness or misery may be, to 
a certain extent, in another's power. But this does not drown 
the voice of nature. The passions which nature bestowed, 
are perverted when this result is brought about. 

Evidently virtue is on the side of the divine administra- 
tion, and vice is opposed to it. The first has reasons for hope, 
which the latter has not. The confidence of vice rests on the 
prospect of eluding the natural processes of retribution. Acci- 
dental causes may operate to protect evil, for a time, at least. 
But the tendencies of virtue and vice, so manifest in respect 
to individuals, are discernable in society. Here virtue, in the 
long run — ^like reason when, in a conflict with brute force, it 
has time for precaution and defence — will win the day. Yir- 
tue will tend to bind to£:ether the elements of the state ; to 
promote industry, harmony and a regard for the public good ; 
to increase all the elements through which the state prospers. 
For this, it must have time to operate, but with tune, the 
advantages which it tends to secure, will become manifest. 
Difiiculties, indeed, must be overcome, for virtue is militant 
here. Sometimes it is neglected and unknown, despised and 
oppressed, and all this may be for wise ends, and to secure a 
broader and more generous recognition at last. But the hin- 
drances are presumably only temporary. On a larger sphere 
they may vanish. Certainly they are not necessary, and we 
may conceive a state of things in which full scope shall be 
given to virtue. The vastness of the material universe sug- 
gests the boundlessness of the moral, and a scheme of Provi 
dence proportion ably extended. 

But supposing a state thoroughly virtuous and just, the 
very picture of it is an argument of the natural advantages of 
virtue as related to society. Such a state would be devoid of 
faction. It would be directed by the highest wisdom. Each 
member, in security, would discharge his assigned duty. In- 
5 



6Q THE PEESENT A STATE OE PROBATION. 

justice and distrust would be unknown. The character of tlie 
state would command confidence and respect abroad. It 
would liave a relative superiority to all others less virtuous 
than itself. It w^ould conciliate those who might desire to 
become its subjects and enjoy its advantages. It would tend 
ever to grow stronger and expand, till all nations should flow 
to it, and the world become subject to its sway. 

Evidently, the Author of nature is not indifferent to virtue 
and vice. His constitution of things is equivalent to a declara- 
tion in favor of one and against the other. If, in the issue, 
it should be found that all are punished according to their 
deserts, this would exhibit a distributive justice, different in 
degree, but not in Mnd, from what prevails now. Add to this, 
the consideration of the tendencies of virtue and vice, found- 
ed in the nature of things, and hindered at present by arti- 
ficial and not necessary causes, and then suppose these causes 
removed in a future state, and the result will be a perfection 
of moral government not witnessed, but yet suggested here. 
So that the notion of a moral scheme of government is natu- 
ral and not fictitious, and there is reason to believe that, how- 
ever imperfect now, the obstacles to its perfection will be 
finally removed. 

That the present is a state of probation, may be inferred 
from the fact of a future life, taken in connection with what 
we experience, viz., that our future welfare depends on our 
present prudence. The natural government of God in this 
world puts us on trial now, and this trial, in which the con- 
duct of youth determines the character of manhood, is analo- 
gous to probation for a future life. Men are tempted to what 
is contrary to their worldly interest, and may in like manner 
be tempted to what is opposed to their future interest. In 
both cases, their neglect of the nature of their actions, when 
they might see what courses lead to good and what to evil, 
forces them to blame themselves. The result that comes upon 
them is due, not so much to ignorance as to passion, or a 
heedlessness that is culpable. In both cases there is proba- 
tion, arising out of our nature or our condition. The tempta- 
tion may be extraordinary, or it may be weak in itself, and 



PEOOFS OF PEOBATTON. 67 

yet prevail tlirougli the weakness of the will or the eagerness 
for indulgence. Some persons never look beyond present 
gratification. Some act even against their present judgment. 
Some are open and bold in vice. "Vivid apprehensions of 
future ill fail to arrest them. External influences may also 
work to their prejudice. Bad example may lend a sanction 
to their vice. An imperfect education may dispose them to 
yield where they should resist. Prevalent false opinions may 
be shared by them, and help to mislead them ; so that negli- 
gence and folly, as well as vice, may bring on disastrous 
results. 

Of this, however, we cannot complain. We are not so 
necessitated to evil or folly, but that we feel that we might 
and ought to resist. In a more exalted condition, we might 
have just as good reason to complain that we are not higher 
and happier, as we have now. 

Thus the present actual state of things is one of trial. We 
are never allowed to feel for a moment that we are absolutely 
secure. If an infinitely good being allows this, we cannot 
argue from his nature that he will not expose us to misery. 
The misery is no more unavoidable than our deportment, 
which occasions it. There is constant danger to our present 
interests, and so there may be to our future. If present en- 
joyments and honors are not forced upon us, when we miscon- 
duct ourselves, we cannot imagine that future good will be. 

Why we are placed in such a state of probation, is a prob- 
lem which we cannot fully solve. If we knew, it might injure 
rather than help us. In any case, our state is consistent with 
God's righteous government; and, if it is in order to our 
being qualified for a better state, it accords with His wisdom 
and goodness. 

Every creature has its proper sphere of existence. In order 
to happiness, its nature must be congruous to its circumstances. 
Hence, a future blissful condition demands specific qualifica- 
tions for it. These qualifications are attainable, with due fore- 
sight and attention. We are so constituted as to become fit 
for new and different conditions. We can acquire ideas, and 
store them up, and make use of them. We can become more 
and more expert in any specific kind of action. A settled 



68 PKESENT DISCIPLDTE. 

alteration in our tempers is possible to a persistent seK-control 
and discipline. Repeated efforts and actions result in habits, 
bodily and mental, by which difficult things become easy, and 
repulsive things acceptable. Passive impressions, indeed, 
grow weaker with repetition ; and it is well that it is so, or 
the sight of distress would always repel the effort to relieve 
it. The surgeon could not attain the impassive calmness 
necessary for his humane task. But active exertion facilitates 
future effort. That effort even becomes pleasurable, though 
arduous. The inclinations opposed to it grov/ weaker, and 
the diiSculties in its way diminish. Thus a new character, 
in some respects, is formed. Probation is possible as to the 
end it contemplates. In our present state, we are not at first 
qualified for the duties of mature life. We approach our full 
use of understanding and powers by an imperfect preparatory 
use. It would be even dangerous to have them all in perfec- 
tion at first. We should not know what to do with them. 
Therefore, as children, we must learn, with powers propor- 
tioned to our state and frame. We must observe the nature 
and use of objects. We must conform to the subordinations 
of domestic and civil government, and the common rules of 
health and life. Our knowledge may be much of it insensibly 
acquired, but in the aggregate it costs care and labor, and tlie 
conquest of our inclinations. 

Of precisely the same kind of discipline for a life to come 
are we made capable. Even if we could not discern the rela- 
tion between present discipline and future perfection of service 
or happiness, this would not be any objection to the fact. We 
cannot tell how exercise and food develop the child's powers 
and frame. The child is not even aware that they do. We 
may, therefore, in spite of our ignorance on many points, 
infer that man is here and now on probation for a life to come. 

But we are able to discern the connection between virtue 
perfected into habit, and future happiness. Analogy indicates 
that our state hereafter will be social. It will need, to its 
blessedness, the exercise of those virtues, truth, justice, etc., 
to the exercise of which we are disciplined now. If the uni- 
verse is under moral government, virtuous character must be 
a necessary condition of blessedness. 



TEIkEPTATIOIT AND UASITS. 69 

But here we find ourselves deficient and liable to go astray. 
Outward objects allure us to evil. Even when indulgence in 
tbem is lawful, it may be limited to times, degi'ees, etc., and 
these must be observed, if the moral principle within us is to 
be regarded. This piinciple is to be mamtained in its in- 
tegrity. It is our only security. When strengthened, it les- 
sens om- danger. By discipline it is streng-thened and made, 
as it were, invincible. Observing that which is right, instead 
of yielding to om* preferences, we pursue our true interest. 
We are saved from the danger attendant upon our propensi- 
ties and passions. Yii'tue, made habitual by discipline under 
probation, becomes victorious. It is improved and strength- 
ened, and leads to happiness. 

It is not enough to account for the fall of an upright being 
to say he is free. That only makes his fall possible. He 
must have propensities, and, in order to his perfection, 
these must be proportioned to his surroundings, his under- 
standing, and his moral sense. As occasions for the indulgence 
of the propensities multiplied, the tendency to yield to them 
might be increased, and at length become effectual. Trans- 
gression of the moral principle might disorder the moral con- 
stitution, and render future transgressions more probable. By 
the repetition of these, evil habits would be formed, and the 
.character become depraved. On the other hand, by resisting 
temptation, the moral principle would be strengthened, the 
propensities would be restrained, and virtue would be secured 
a triumph. The danger of sinning might ultimately be re- 
duced almost to nothing, and probation might result in con- 
firmed hohness and blessedness. This is especially true of 
fallen beings striving against evil. They would find in a world 
like this much to help them — ^many warnings, new strength 
from each preceding effort, warnings from others, lessons of 
experience and disciphne. 

Indeed, the evils which sm-round us teach us the -odious 
nature and ill consequences of vice. Our own experience is 
constantly admonishing us what to seek and what to shun. 
Every act of self-government strengthens the virtuous prin- 
ciple within us. Eesolute persistence against violent tempta- 
tions confirms our integrity in an eminent degree, and is 



70 THE WOKLD A SCHOOL OF DISCIPLINE. 

advantageous to us in proportion to the severity of our trial. 
Perfection, through discipline and improvement, implies the 
exercise of self-denial. If virtue were not arduous, weak in- 
clinations might suffice for it, but danger and difficulty rapidly 
confinn it into a habit. 

It is objected that our moral as well as our physical and 
intellectual powers may be overtasked. This is possible in 
exceptional cases, but it is not inconsistent with this world 
being intended and fitted ^to be a state of improvement. 
There are sciences, highly improving to the mind, in which 
some, on account of their difficulty, will not engage. So 
some, instead of struggling to virtue, yield to vice, but even 
this makes the world fitted to be a place of discipline for the 
good. Many ends of the moral system may be unknown, or 
above our comprehension, but its tendency to exercise and 
improve virtue, beyond what would be possible in a perfectly 
virtuous community, is manifest. 

Shaftesbury's objection, though his name is not mentioned, 
is next met, viz., that there can be no merit in an obedience 
enforced by hope or fear. But obedience is obedience in any 
case, and when observed grows into a habit, and habits repress 
opposite inclinations, while moreover, veracity, justice, etc., 
are really coincident with self-interest, and each separately is 
a just principle. A good life begun at the instance of either, 
and persisted in, leads to the same result. 

Nor can it be said that the present discipline of affliction is 
not needed for a future state of happiness. Although we 
may not need the patience, we may need the temper that 
results from it. "We may be capable of more happiness by 
having our inclinations^ crossed, or our wills subdued, or 
habits of resignation formed. 

Kor, again, can it be said that God might have made us at 
once what we were finally designed to be. What we are to 
be, is to be the effect of what we do. God's natural govern- 
ment is not designed to save us labor and trouble or danger, 
but to fit us to encounter or endure them. "Whether we 
will improve our powers and opportunities, and be the better 
for it, or neglect them, and be the worse, is left to our own 
choice. If this is so under God's natural, why not under His 
moral government ? 



OBJECTION OF THE FATALIST MET. 



71 



But tliis state of probation may be even necessary for the 
display of character. Not to God, for He is omniscient, but 
to created beings, that they may know one another, and dis- 
cern the justice of their final award. Such a result would 
accord with the scheme of things that has been considered. 

The objection of the fatalist that all things are determined 
by necessity, does not destroy the proof of an intelligent author 
and governor of the world. If the theory of necessity be 
admitted, it applies to the present life. And yet, however 
applicable, it does not exclude dehberation, choice, preference, 
and all the conditions of temporal probation. Necessity does 
not determine whether the world was created by an intelligent 
author or not, but whether it was created by Him necessarily. 
His Being must be admitted to be necessary, but it does not 
follow that everytliing exists by the same kind of necessity, 
that is, antecedent to design. Necessity accounts for the 
structure of the world, as it does for that of a house, but no 
otherwise. There must be an agent, only He is a necessary 
agent. 

But the practical application of the theory of necessity, in 
the education of a child, for instance, will illustrate its 
absurdity. His fancied release from obligation — however 
inculcated — would soon lead to a practical reductio ad 
ahsurdum. The assumption that events to come are fixed, 
and that the harvest will be reaped — if it is so fated — ^is 
never pushed so far that men neglect to sow the seed. 
Obviously, the harvest of a future life may be similarly 
conditioned. We are treated as if we were free. We are 
subjected to probation as if we were responsible. This is so 
in all practical matters, and how can it be shown that religion 
is not a practical matter ? 

Here we are conscious of will. We possess character. The 
constitution of nature implies that its author has the same. 
This is consistent with whatever necessity can be predicated 
either of God or man. This necessity does not relieve an act 
from the charge of being just or unjust. It does not relieve 
from just punishment. The punishment is inflicted as if 
deserved, that is, as if men were free. They are conscious 



73 NECESSITY NOT A WOEKING THEORY. 

of right and wrong, of self-approval or self-rebuke. Thus 
they are made aware of a rule of action to which they are 
obligated to conform. This rule is forced upon our attention, 
and it must be ascribed to the Author of nature, so that — • 
necessity or no necessity — He puts us under obligation to 
conform to rules which He has given. If, on the other hand, 
necessity applies as a time theory to human actions, it must 
apply to all as well as a part, and the result would be that it 
would set aside, along with freedom, praise and blame, merit 
and demerit, overthrowing at once all human and divine 
justice. Here, then, is the direct and practical issue. The 
Theory of Necessity is not a working theory for human 
experience, or for the world as it is constituted. 

The doctrine of human freedom is beset with no such 
absurdities. Experience justifies our assumption of it. Things 
are actually constituted as if we were free. Even if the doc- 
trine of necessity were true, it would be utterly inapplicable, 
and could only mislead. But the proofs of religion remain 
the same, and just as conclusive, when necessity is supposed. 
God has still a will and character, as we know that we have. 
There would still be crime on the part of men, and if criminal, 
they would be punishable. To assert injustice in punishing 
crime, is admitting that we cannot rid ourselves of the notion 
of justice. 

But the fact abides that God rewards -and punishes. He 
has bestowed upon us the moral faculty by which we approve 
or disapprove. This implies a rule, and a rule of a peculiar 
kind, by which we are self-approved, or self -condemned. The 
dictates of the moral faculty are God's laws with sanctions. 
We have a feeling of security when we comply with them, 
and of danger in disobeying them. To this constitution of 
our being God's government must conform. Hence religious 
worship, if only the acknowledgment of that government, 
becomes a duty. 

But natural religion is conformable to the general sense of 
mankind. It has been essentially professed in all countries, 
and may be traced through all ages. These facts show that 
it was either originally revealed, or forced itseK upon the 
convictions of men. The rude state of inan in early ages 



VASTNE9S OF THE MOEAL SYSTEM. Y3 

presumes the former, and it is confirmed bj tlie pretended 
reTektions of ancient times, wliicli imply either that a real 
one existed, or that men were prepared to expect one. Facts 
like these must stand firm against all the objections derived 
from necessity. Even on the admission of necessity, necessary 
agents are accountable, and — all prejudices, customs, perver- 
sions of reason to the contrary — the theory which makes them 
necessary, is practically false. 

On the supposition of a moral government, the analogy of 
nature teaches that it must be a scheme, and one infinitely 
vast and comprehensive. Its parts curiously correspond to 
each other, and this correspondence embraces all the past as 
well as future, all actions and events, as well as creatures. 
1^0 event can be isolated, and yet no finite mind can trace all 
its causes, connections, and relations, however insignificant in 
itself. This is true of God's natural, and, it is to be presumed, 
true of His moral government. Indeed, the two are blended 
into a single scheme, the natural subservient to the moral and 
adjusted to it. This adjustment is previously designed, and 
applies to the periods of trial, the instruments of justice, the 
forms of retribution. To object to one feature of this system, 
we ought to know its relations to all the others. In any other 
sphere but religion, the invalidity of a kindred objection 
would be confessed. 

To assert that all evils might have been prevented by re- 
peated interpositions, or that more good might have been 
eifected by a different constitution of things, is asserting what 
we cannot prove, and what in some instances we can discern to 
be false. Apparent disorders in the world may be such simply 
because of our ignorance. Some changes might be suggested, 
which, on trial, would be found palpably impossible. To ob- 
ject against the actual ordering of Providence is a task to which 
our knowledge and powers are inadequate. Some unknown 
relation, or unknown impossibility, might determine what was 
criticised to be not only good, but good in the highest degree. 

In God's moral government, means are necessary to ends, 
and most desirable ends may depend on very disagreeable 
means. Our experience shows us often results contrary to 



74 OUE KNOWLEDGE LIMITED. 

v/hat we anticipated. "We are thus admonislied to be cautious 
in our objections. It is not enough that we cannot see hoxo 
the means are to work out good, or think we can see that they 
must work out the opposite. They may in fact be not only 
fitting, but actually best, or the only means. 

But sin has entered the world ; and would not the world 
be better without sin % Yet pain is in the world ; and health 
is better than pain, while pains may be curative. General 
laws are shown by nature to be best, and for all the good we 
have, or the confidence we feel, we are dependent upon them. 
Yet by general laws, irregnilarities cannot be prevented or 
remedied, while direct intei'positions would have bad effects, 
encouraging improvidence, leaving us no rule of life or basis 
of calculation, and leading perhaps to distant results working 
incalculable injury. 

But if so ignorant of a scheme practically infinite, how are 
we competent to understand the proofs of rehgion ? Our 
ignorance is not absolute, but partial. We may have evidence 
of G-od's being and character, without comprehending His 
plans. Moral obligations, however, remain unaffected by our 
ignorance of the consequences of complying with or rejecting 
them. Our incompetence to raise objections in certain cases 
is manifest, and we know it ; but to credit religion is trusting 
to experience. 

The present state, then, is a fragment of an immense 
scheme. "We are connected, if not with all its parts, at least 
with many — with the present, past and futin-e. This scheme, 
moreover, is progressive : it is steadily unfolding. It contains 
what is wonderful, and not less wonderful, though a Creator 
be denied, or it be asserted that He governs without rule, or 
by a bad one. But our own nature compels us to believe Him 
just and good. The world, as it is, was made by Him. He 
rules it, and has assigned us our lot in it. As reasonable be- 
ings, capable of reflection, we can hardly avoid reflecting upon 
our end and our place in the scheme of things to which we 
belong. 

In the second part of his "Analogy" — with which we 
are less concerned — Butler treats of the importance of 
Christianity, and the objections against it, as divinely re- 



MORAL AND TOSITIVE DUTIES. 75 

vealed. Its importance is seen in the fact that it is a 
republication of l^atural Keligion, that it is authoritative, 
that God saw reasons for making it, that it teaches religion in 
its purity, and that it brings life and immortality to light. It 
moreover is attested by n«)iracles, while it makes known what 
reason could never discover — not only the fact of our fallen 
state, but the means of recovery. It lays down moral duties 
as well as positive precepts, which are equally binding when 
once admitted to be from God. 

The manner in which Butler deals with the vexed question 
of the relative obligation of moral and positive precepts must 
be noted. " Moral duties arise out of the nature of the case 
itself, prior to external command. Positive duties do not, but 
from external command," nor would they be duties but for 
the Divine command. Yet they (positive institutions) rest 
either on natural or revealed religion, and the reason of them 
in general is very obvious, although why the particular form 
of them should be enjoined, may be obscure. So far as a rea- 
son can be seen for them, they are not in contrast with what 
is moral. But when two precepts — one moral and one posi- 
tive — enjoined by the same anthority, are supposed to come in 
conflict, so that only one can be obeyed, "it is indisputable 
that our obligations are to obey the former, because there are 
apparent reasons for this preference, and none against it." If, 
as in Christianity, positive institutions are means to a moral 
end, " the end must be acknowledged more excellent than the 
means." Butler, however, does not consider the determina- 
tion of the question so necessary as it appears to many, 
although he contends that it has been determined in his own 
sense, by revelation. 

The presumptions against a miraculous revelation are next 
considered. Against such a revelation we cannot reason from 
analogy, so long as we lack the knowledge of facts in regard 
to worlds similar to ours, on which an analogy may be based. 
I*^or can we object to the mode in which it is communicated, 
so long as the same objections might be urged against the 
modes in which we obtain the knowledge that we need for 
daily life and practice. The objections against different parts 
or features of revelation, are in like manner disposed of by 



76 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

arguments from analogy. The want of imiversalitj in its 
promulgation, is shown to he paralleled by the various degrees 
of knowledge enjoyed by the light of nature, in different lands 
and in different ages. The seemingly incomplete evidence 
on which it is given, may be considered as an element of pro- 
bation, while the passions and prejudices of men may be pre- 
sumed to blind them often to the force of the evidence which 
actually exists. Miracles, which are in part evidence of the 
divine origin of revelation, must be accepted on sufficient tes- 
timony, and that testimony is summarily presented. The sub- 
ject of prophecy is taken up, and the objections against it are 
disposed of. The collateral evidences of Christianity are then 
passed in review, and finally, as a conclusion to the whole 
work, objections against the argument from analogy are con- 
sidered. 

One of these objections is, that what is wanted is to clear 
natural as well as revealed religion of difficulties, and this 
want is not met by showing that the same difficulties he 
against both. Butler answers that this objection assumes on 
our part the right to have God's entire scheme of providence 
explained to us, but this right we cannot claim. In daily life 
we have to act, not from a full knowledge of all facts or cir- 
cumstances, but in the light of inference from such as we do 
know. Probability is our guide. The physician, for instance, 
must be guided by it, even when life is at stake. 

It is objected, again, that " it is a strange way, indeed, of 
convincing men of the obligations of religion, to show them 
that they have as httle reason for their worldly pursuits." 
But the rules of prudence are regarded as obligatory, not- 
withstanding all difficulties and uncertainties in the latter 
case ; and why should they not be regarded when religion is 
a practical matter, and has to do with man's highest happiness ? 

It may be said that objections against the Divine goodness 
and justice are not removed by showing that they are just as 
valid in the case of natural as revealed religion. Butler re- 
plies, that all that is required is to show that the tilings 
objected to are not necessarily inconsistent with the Divine 
attributes, while the object of the argument from analogy is 
not designed to solve all difficulties. 



btjtlee's "analogy." T7 

That the argument from analogy may leave the mind in an 
misettled state, Butler in part admits. But he contends that 
the question is not whether the evidence of revelation is fully 
satisfactory in itself, but whether it is sufficient to prove and 
discipline that virtue which it presupposes to exist. 

To assert that, after all, men will not forego present inter- 
est and pleasure out of regard to religion on doubtful evidence, 
is little to the purpose. The question is not how men will 
act, but how they ought to act. The weight of the argument 
from analogy will be felt by the believer as a confirmation of 
his faith, while those who do not believe will be led to per- 
ceive the absurdity of attempting to prove religion false. 

Butler appended to his " Analogy " two Dissertations, one 
on Personal Identity, the other on the Nature of Yirtue. 
While criticising Locke's views of identity, he inclines to ac- 
cept his definition, " the sameness of a rational being," and for 
proof of identity appeals to consciousness. The second Dis- 
sertation indicates how carefully Butler had considered and 
digested the views of his predecessors. 



IX. 

MERITS KSTD, DEFECTS OF BTJTLEr's METHOD CONSIDERED. 

The " Analogy " of Bishop Butler was adapted to the age 
in which it was written. It was designed to meet objections 
to revelation that were then current, and its author availed 
himself of the advantages afforded him by the concessions of 
his opponents. An acquaintance with the literature of the 
time shows how extensively it must have moulded and modi- 
fied the plan of his work. Although it betrays little of the 
aspect of controversy, and seems to move in a sphere above it, 
yet every reader familiar with the publications that preceded 
it, can discern its scope as it respects them, and recognize the 
opponents with whom its author is brought into conflict. Its 
calmly earnest, almost judicious tone — the perfect silence 
which it preserves as to the works it is designed to refute 



78 METHOD OF THE " AJSTALGGT." 

— tlie utter absence of all personal allusions and all refer- 
ence to contemporarj events — might lead one to suppose that 
it embodied the speculations of a recluse thinker, little con- 
cerned or involved in the intellectual or religious agitations of 
his time. All these things add to its permanent value, or at 
least relieve it of what might otherwise mar the unity of its 
impression ; but they must not be so interpreted as to with- 
draw the work from all relation to a great controversy, which, 
in its vai-ying aspects, had been going forward for more than 
half a century, and with which it was indeed directly and 
closely connected. 

The real value of the "Analogy" to us, however, is not to 
be sought in its effectiveness — great as it was — in bringing 
the questions in controversy to a direct and final issue. It 
consists rather in the fact that it embodies an instructive and 
able exposition of the moral system — ^in some of its most im- 
portant aspects. It presents the leading facts of God's natural 
government of the world, and traces, with great justness as 
well as sagacity, their religious bearings. Without unduly 
depreciating it, we may yet say that, if in some respects it has 
gained, in others it has lost, by its relation to the controversies 
of the age. Its argument is characterized by adaptations and 
applications affecting its structure, growing out of the cir- 
cumstances in which it was produced. 

With the object that Butler had in view, it was a great 
thing gained, if, before entering upon the body of his work, 
he could have the doctrine of a future life conceded or estab- 
lished. He would thus be enabled to present what follows in 
a more convincing light. But the future life was, by most of 
the party to which he stood opposed, freely admitted. Lord 
Herbert has classed it among the five leading doctrines of his 
faith, which, he contended, might be established by the light 
of nature. Blount, Toland, Collins and Tindal, followed 
generally, on this point, his line of thought. Butler naturally 
felt that he had little more to do than to accept their admis- 
sions, and hence contents himself with presenting merely what 
may be termed the negative argument for the future life, 
viz., the presum23tion that the soul will continue to exist, un- 
less it can be shown that death terminates its conscious being. 



WHAT BUTLEE ASSUIVIES. 79 

He thus tlirows tlie burden of proof on liis opponents, omit- 
ting, of course, the positive argument for immortality derived 
from tiie consideration of the moral system. 

His method thus had its advantages, considered simply with 
reference to the circumstances of the time. But it had its dis- 
advantages also. His negative argument Was as conclusive for 
the immortality of brutes as of men, and this he freely con- 
ceded. But, in the changes which have taken place since 
his day, the doctrine of a future life has been called in ques- 
tion full as much as any other of the important points which 
he sought to estabhsh. His argument, lacking the positive 
element, which could not fitly be introduced, till the basis of 
it in the moral system was established, tends to weaken the 
impression of the work, while it fails to do justice to the 
proof of immortality afforded by the light of natm^e. 

The true method for constnicting a scheme of the moral 
system is to begin with the positions not merely least dis- 
puted, as in Butlei-'s case, but most easily and conclusively 
established. Evidently the future hfe is not one of these. 
The fact of a moral order of the world lies open to observa- 
tion, and is constantly affirmed by human experience. This 
fact, therefore, may be most easily verified by evidence, and, 
when established, becomes a basis of argument to which we 
may thenceforth confidently appeal. 

Again, Butler assumes the existence of God. One of his 
postulates, legitimately such with most minds, and freely con- 
ceded by his opponents, is that of an Author of I^Tature, to 
whose will and ordering the entire constitution of nature may 
be referred. But here again modern scepticism calls in ques- 
tion Butler's data. The existence of an intelligent Author of 
IS'ature thus becomes one of the points to be proved. The 
place for its introduction and proof is obviously after the veri- 
fication of the fact that a moral order of the world exists — an 
order which goes beyond the material creation, because fur- 
nishing evidence, not only of the wisdom and power, but of 
the goodness and justice of God, 

Another feature of the " Analogy," viewed as containing 
an exposition of the moral system, must be regarded as a de- 
fect. It was not such to Butler or his contemporarieSj but it 



30 WHAT BUTLEK DID NOT ATTEMPT. 

is to US. He culls out from human experience just tlte facts 
that were needed to establish certain specific conclusions which 
he sought to estabhsh, and, for the end he had in view, these 
facts a-re sufficient and decisive. But when we examine his 
work, apart from all controversial aspects and relations, that 
were merely local o'r temporary, we find its value and signifi- 
cance to be, in the fact, that it unfolds the scheme of God's 
natural government over men. But there is a vast mass of 
very material and important evidence bearing upon this, of 
which Butler has made little use. He did not attempt — and 
perhaps he was wise in not attempting — ^to take any general 
survey of the broad sphere of man's relations to moral law 
and retribution, as illustrated by actual experience. He has 
not mapped out, or classified, the different departments of 
evidence in proof or elucidation of a moral system, but has 
contented himself with selecting from each what suited his pur- 
pose. And yet it is obvious that if we are to apprehend or 
appreciate the moral system as it is, we need to examine it on 
all sides, and in all its relations, so far as human observation 
or scrutiny can extend. We must not content ourselves with a 
small, or even a large, number of isolated facts, gathered from 
a limited sphere, however significant or important these facts 
may be, in themselves considered. We must overlook no- 
thing material, which is necessary to a large and satisfactory 
induction. Our method should be as comprehensive and 
scientific as that by which we assume to become masters of 
the order and laws of the physical universe. Only thus can 
we secure the most solid and reliable basis for our conclusions, 
and be sure that we have not at some point misintei'preted 
the isolated facts that have come before us, or that these 
assumed facts do not clash with other imnoticed facts. 

It is no discredit to Butler that he did not attempt this 
difficult task. It might — ^for the ends he had in view — have 
encumbered rather than helped his argument. Yet he has 
gone so far, that we can only regret that he did not go far- 
ther. Prof. Farrar, in speaking of the " Analogy," recognizes 
its merit in this respect. " The real secret of its power, how- 
ever, lies not merely m its force as an argument to refute 
objections against revelation, but in its positive effect as a 



butler's merit. 81 

philosophy, opening up a grand view of the divine govern- 
ment, and giving an explanation of revealed doctrines, by 
using analogy as the instrument for adjusting them into the 
scheme of the universe. He seems himseK to have taken a 
broad view of God's dealings in the moral world, analagous 
to that which the recent physical discoveries of his time had 
exhibited in the natural. In the same manner as Newton in 
his '• Princijpia'' had, by an extension of terrestrial mechan- 
ics, explained the movements of the celestial orbs, and united 
under one grand generalization the facts of terrestrial and 
celestial motion, so Butler aimed at exhibiting as instances of 
one and the same set of moral laws, the moral government of 
God, which is visible to natural reason, and the spiritual gov- 
ernment, which is unveiled by revelation." 

It is Butler's merit that he thus led the way in suggesting, 
and largely in developing, the scheme of the system of moral 
government established on earth. It is what no one before 
him — Wollaston, perhaps, excepted — ^had done, or undertaken 
to do so fully. Many bad obtained glimpses of it. Many 
had noted isolated features of it. Heathen philosophers, like 
Seneca and Plutarch, may have even been awed by its 
grandeur. But their presentation of it is fragmentary. In 
their most vivid intuitions — and the testimony of these is 
valuable and weighty — they fail to obtain a comprehensive 
view of the bearings and relations of the most familiar facts. 
To some points they bear concurrent testimony. On others, 
they hesitate or are silent. Even when they harmonize fully, 
the fact that their views are so limited and circumscribed, 
deprives them of that support which they might have re- 
ceived from the presentation of collateral and kindred truths. 

Indeed, to the proper presentation of any single feature 
of the moral system, it is essential that it should be seen in 
its connections. It is like one of many pillars of an edifice 
that support one another. We may compare the established 
fact of the existence of a moral system to the abutment of a 
bridge, and each advanced truth growing out of it to succes- 
sive piers connected by arches, and so connected that each 
and all are strengthened by the connection. The fact that 
vii'tue has some peculiar and manifest advantages, and vice 
6 



82 MUTUAL SUPrORT OF DOCTRINES. 

some peculiar disadvantages, harmonizes with the theory 
of human probation, and supports it. Probation fits into 
a scheme of partial earthly retribution, and at once explains 
and confirms it. The immortality of the soul takes its fit- 
ting place in a scheme which reconciles divine justice with 
a scheme of things manifestly imperfect, if considered only 
in its bearings and relations to the present life. But the 
moral nature of man, by which he is held accountable for his 
actions, and sits in judgment upon himself — while an indis- 
j)utable fact — tends to confinn all those features of the moral 
system to which it is exactly adjusted, thus contributing new 
evidence and support to conclusions already established by 
presumptive proof. 

This is, indeed, a most important point. It is a matter in 
which the proper and orderly statement of separate facts, each 
probable in itself and harmonizing with all the others, be- 
comes a chain of evidence, that draws after it a conclusion far 
more probable than any single fact taken by itself alone. The 
facts are like points supposed to be located in the circumfer- 
ence of an undescribed circle, the mutual relation of which, 
as well as their relation to a common centre, is seen the mo- 
ment that the circle is described. That common centre is the 
moral system, itself a comprehensive fact, and when its radius 
reaches a mass of concentric facts, all alike related to it as 
well as to each other, we feel that that centre is posited in a 
probability, the force of which approaches to demonstration. 
Then, as we gather up the testimony of consecutive ages, and 
of different or distant nations, we seem to listen to the voice 
of concurrent witnesses ; only these witnesses are probable 
truths, mutually supporting each other, and cumulating their 
testimony, till it becomes well-nigh irresistible. 

Here, then, is at once the excellence and the defect of 
Butler's " Analogy," considered not as a work of contro- 
versy, but as an exposition of the moral system — excellence, 
in that it went so far ; defect, in that it did not go farther 
— in that it did not marshal and classify facts over a field so 
broad and rich as that it traversed ; that it did not exhibit 
them more distinctly in their mutual relations ; that it did 
not make each point established more directly and effectively 



THE FIELD TO BE STUDIED. ' 83 

tributary to the support of otlier points ; and, incidental to all 
this, that an arrangement of topics was adopted which, how- 
ever legitimate and fitting, or even necessary at the time, can 
be no longer followed, if we would advance from the simpler 
to the more complex, from the most easily established, to that 
which requires for its proof the elucidation and eviction of 
antecedent propositions, 

Butler is not to be criticised, or rather blamed, for not hav- 
ing constructed an argument adapted more precisely to our 
times. He is rather to be praised and appreciated for having 
met the necessities of his own time so well, and none can rob 
him of the merit of having embodied in his analogy the grand 
conception and the leading outlines of that moral system, of 
which many before him had obtained inspuing glimpses, but 
the comprehensive features of which none had ever so clearly 
grasped, or so distinctly and powerfully portrayed. 

But what Butler, from the very circumstances of his posi- 
tion, failed to do, remains to be done. It is a task for which 
another Butler is needed.. But far less than the task of at- 
tempting it, is that of indicating what must be its method, 
and what is necessary to its successful achievement. One 
prerequisite, which is all-essential, is so to map out the field of 
investigation, that we can be sure of going over it with some- 
thing like an exhaustive thoroughness, and may thus bo 
enabled both to see how the several portions of it harmonize 
in the testimony they afford, and know how to dispose of and 
classify new facts as they come under our observation. 

Note. — A brief concluding note v/ill allow no more than the mention of a few lead- 
ing writers who, subsequent to Butler, have discussed the same class of topics 
which he handled. Dugald Stuai-t, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Meta- 
phj'sical, Ethical and Political Philosophy ; Sir James Mackintosh, in his Disserta- 
tion on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, andWhewell in his History of Moral 
Philosophy, have gone over portions of the iield. Lcland's " Deistical Writers" may 
also be prolitably consulted. The works most worthy of note are, Ellis' Knowl- 
edge of Divine Things (1743) ; Warburton's Divine Legation ; Hume's Essays ; 
Tillard's Future Rewards and Punishments believed by tlie Ancients ; Abernetliy's 
Discourses (1743) ; Benson's Ecasonableness of the Christian Religion ; Baxter's 
Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul ; Ramsay's Philosophical Principles 
(1748) ; Grove's Moral Philosophy ; Lord Kames' Essay on the Principles of 
Morality and Natural Religion ; Bolingbroke's Worlds ; Bishop Law's Works ; 
Lucas' Enquiry; Price's Review, etc. (175S) ; Adam Smith's Theory of the Moral 
Sentiments ; Dr. G. Campbell's Dissertation (1762) ; Tiicker's Light of Nature ; 
Dr. Thomas Eeid's Inquiry ; Price's Dissertations ; Dr. Seattle's Essaj' ; Riccal- 
toun's Works ; Priestley and Price on Materialism, etc. ; Paley's Moral Philoso- 
phy (1785) ; President Edwards on the Nature of Virtue, etc. ; Belsham's Philoso- 



84 NOTE. 

phy (1801); Stuart's Outlines of Moral Philosophy (1801, etc.) ; Samuel Drew on the 
Immortality of the Soul, etc. ; Dr. Thomas Brown's Writings ; Grinfield's Connec- 
tion of Natural and Revealed Theology (1818) ; fley's Lectures (1822) ; Bentham's 
Utilitarian Writings; Bishop Hampden's Philosophical Evidences, etc. (1827), 
and Lectures on the Study of Moral Philosophy (1835) ; Dr. Chalmers' Natural 
Theology, etc. ; The Natural Theology of Paley, as also that of Fergus, and also 
of Burnett; the Bridgewater Treatises, on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of 
God, by Chalmers, Kidd, Prout, Bell, Kirby, Whewell, Buckland, and Roget ; 
Blakey's History of Moral Science (1833); Dick's Christian Philosopher ; Mira- 
baud's Nature and her Laws ; Posse's Christian Revelation and its Truths ; 
Parkinson's Rationalism and Revelation ; Gilderdale's Essay on Natural Religion 
and Revelation (1837) ; Dewey's Moral View of Commerce ; also his Lowell Lec- 
tures and Discourses on Human Nature ; Brougham's Discourse of Natural The- 
ology, etc. (1835) ; Notes on Paley's Theology, by Brougham and Sir Charles 
Bell ; also Brougham's Dissertations on Subjects of Science connected with Nat 
ural Theology (1839) ; Waj'land's Moral Science ; Cardinal Wiseman's Lectures 
(1836); some of theWritings of Isaac Taylor; Babbage's Ninth Brldgewater Treatise; 
Gillespie's a priori Argument (1843) ; Theodore "Parker's Writings ; Allin's Dis- 
courses on Atlieism ; Godwin on Atheism ; some of the Writings of Robert Owen, 
James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer ; Morell's Philosophy of Re- 
ligion ; Whewell's Elements of Morals ; Dr. McCosh on the Divine Government 
(1850) ; also his Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation (1856), of which it is 
]-cmarked by AUibone, that it should be perused after reading Butler's Analogy, 
and with the works of Currier and Owen ; Chalmers' Prelections on Butler's Anal- 
ogy (1849) ; Burnett's Philosophy of Spirit in Relation to Matter; Humphry's 
Hulsean Lectures on the Doctrine of a Future State ; Henry Rogers' Essays, etc. 
(1850) ; Kerns' Moral Government of God Elucidated and Enforced ; Fourier's 
Passions of the Human Soul ; George Taylor's Indications of a Creator (1551) ; 
Miall's Bases of Belief (1853); Sir William Hamilton's Works, Mansel's Lectures, 
etc.; Calderwood's Philosophy of the Infinite, and his work on Moral Philosophy ; 
Tulloch's Theism (1855); Ferrier's Institutes ; Tagarton Locke's Philosophy, etc. ; 
Walker's Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation ; also his Philosophy of Scepticism ; 
Farrar's History of Free Thought ; W. A. Butler's Ancient Philosophy ; J. 
Young's Province of Reason ; Evil not of God, etc. ; Lewes' Biographical His- 
tory of Philosophy ; Bledsoe's Theodicy ; Lecky's History of Rationalism ; 
Maurice's History of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy ; Hagenbach's History 
of Rationalism ; Bain's Mental and Moral Science ; The Duke of Argyle's Reign of 
Law ; Gladstone's Juventus Mundi ; Gould's Origin of Religious Belief ; Lecky's 
History of European Morals ; President Porter's Supplement to Ueberweg^s His- 
tory of Philosophy ; and numerous others of recent date. 

A work well worthy of special notice is Gabell's " Accordance of Religion with 
Nature," in which he confesses his indebtedness to Berkeley, Tucker, Reid, 
Stewart, Brown, and others, and presents verj^ clearly and forcibly some points 
passed over by Butler. Napier's Lectures on Butler reproduce the substance of 
Butler's argument, with appropriate comments, and were prepared in view of 
Gabell's suggestions. In a great varietj' of theological works will be found com- 
ments on Butler, and among the Quarterly Reviews which contain articles on the 
Analogy, may be mentioned the Am. Bib. Repository, X. 317; Quar. Rev., LXIV. 
183 ; Chris. Spec, II. 604 (reproduced by the author, Albert Barnes, in his Introduc- 
tion to Butler's Analogy) ; Meth. Quar. Rev., I. 556 ; III. 128 ; XI. 247 ; Christian 
Review, IX. 199 ; and recently the Contemporary Review. 
_ Of writers on the continent of Europe, after the leading German philosophers, 
since Kant, who need not be mentioned, we have space onlj'to specify Helvetius, 
Cordillac, Diderot, Burigny, d'Holbach, Voltaire, Vico, Lessing (Wolfen-Buttel 
Fragments, 1774-'7) ; Spalding, Bahrdt, Reinhard, Herder, Bouterweck, Oken, 
Schleiermacher, Jacobi, Fichte, Eberhard, Ritter, Bunsen, Wuttke, Rothe, Comte, 
Jouffray, Constant, Cousin, Feuerbach, NavUle, Vinet, Buchner, and Strauss. 
This list might be almost indefinitely extended. Indeed, the works which have 
appeared from the pens of French and German, as well as English writers, during 
the last twenty years, on topics identical or kindred with those handled by Butler, 
Avould constitute of themselves an extended bibliography. They indicate a deep- 
er as well as more general interest than has heretofore prevailed on questions per- 
taining to the Moral System, and its connection with Revealed Religion. 



THE MORAL SYSTEM. 



I. 

ITS SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS AND RELATIVE IMPORTANCE. 

Science is the orderly classification of ascertained facts in 
the distinct department of knowledge with which it is con- 
cerned. Of that department it aims to set forth the natm-e, 
constitution, principles, or laws bj which it is characterized 
or governed. There are, therefore, as many possible sciences 
as there are distinct departments of knowledge, the facts of 
which can be classified, or the laws of which can be ascer- 
tained. 

1. Among these sciences, that of the Moral System — which 
treats of the constitution and laws of that moral order of the 
"imiverse to which man is subject — holds in some respects the 
highest position. Its vast extent is seen in the fact that all 
other sciences, through- their relation to man, are tributary to 
it. Its paramount importance is manifest when we consider 
that man, his obligations, the conditions of his highest well- 
being, the rewards or penalties of his conduct, and, in a word, 
all that he has most reason to hope or fear, are among the sub- 
jects of which it treats. 

If, in the sphere of universal knowledge, the several sci- 
ences may be compared to the radii of a circle, the Moral 
System is the centre in which they all meet. To this alone 
do they all sustain a common relation, and in this alone do 
they find their true unity. Each science is important in pro- 
portion as it relates to man and to human interests, and that 
is most important which has to do most directly with man 
highest — that is, his moral and spiritual interests. 

2. All the sciences testify to the supreme place which man 
holds among all the objects with which they deal. By him, 
and for him, they may be said to exist. They lay all their 

(85) 



86 SUBOEDINATION IlS: NATURE. 

treasures at his feet. Tliej attract his attention ; they invite 
his study ; they expand liis powers ; they develop his capac- 
ity ; they increase, and even multiply his resources, and they 
minister to his comforts. Without him, if they could exist, 
they would exist in vain, while they enable him to apprehend 
that infinite art which has so constituted his being and sur- 
roundings, that universal nature acknowledges his superiority, 
and waits for him to become its interpreter. The science, 
therefore, which expounds the laws and constitution of the 
moral order of things to which man is subject, justly takes 
precedence in its claims upon our attention above all that deal 
directly only with fragmentary portions of the universe, and 
indirectly with man. 

3. But there is a manifest subordination established in na- 
ture which asserts the natural supremacy of reason ; by means 
of which human energy is ever, more and more, extending 
its dominion over material objects. Inorganic ministers to 
organic ; vegetable to animal ; animal to intellectual and 
moral. All point upward to man, and they do so from 
original constitution, and with evident design. Man alone 
can appreciate Nature's beauties, grandeurs, harmonies. He 
alone is able to press her forces into his service. For his 
eye, the universe is pictured over with emblems, rife in 
analogies, rich in suggestions. For him, its objects, with their 
hints, lessons, impulses to thought and action, render a mani- 
fold service. The flower has its beauty and its fragrance, but 
the botanist, the poet, and the moralist, find each their uses 
for it. ^Nature is full of types and symbols, and forms for 
expressing and illustrating human thought. Material things 
give forth — their richest tribute — spiritual meanings, till lan- 
guage itseK, in which they are gathered up, becomes the 
almost exhaustless store-house which thought and feeling lay 
under contribution, thus exercising that natural sovereignty 
with which they are invested. 

4. In the constitution of man's own being, there is a kin- 
dred subordination. His physical structm-e is marvelous as a 
material organism. Treatises have been written on separate 
portions or organs of it, and have left its wonders still unex- 
hausted. But what is it without " the ruling mind ? " And 



THE MOBAL SPHERE. 8Y 

yet the mind — mere intellect — may leave its possessor des- 
picable. Man's greatness culminates in his moral nature. 
Without this, or with it perverted, he forfeits all respect, 
and gravitates ever downward to deeper debasement. Only 
when his moral nature is properly and symmetrically devel- 
oped, and he conforms to that moral standard which is con- 
sistent with social purity and justice, are the gifts of nature, 
the conquests of science, or the attainments of art of any 
avail, except to illustrate his degradation and his misery. 

The great question, therefore, for him is — to what moral 
conditions is he subject ? It becomes him above all to inquire 
whether there is a moral system ; whether, in the established 
order of the universe, there are fixed and ascertainable laws 
of conduct, upon which his well-being depends ; and if there 
are such laws, what are the rewards and penalties that are 
affixed to them, and what light do all these throw upon the 
design of the Great Author of the constitution of nature, 
with respect to man's duty and destiny. 

5. That there is a moral sphere, in which man lives, and 
moves, and has his being, is as obvious as that there is a ma- 
terial sphere. The man that professes to believe that he is 
nothing more than animated or reasoning matter, is moved 
and controlled, attracted or repelled, blessed or cursed, by 
the abstractions of his own thought. He lives to a great 
extent in an ideal world. The great practical questions of 
life, ever meeting him, concern his emotional and moral na- 
ture. He cannot confront them without considering moral 
truths and moral obligation. He cannot make physical com- 
fort and real enjoyment always synonymous. Something 
more is wanted than the indulgence of physical appetites and 
intellectual tastes. It is the moral element of character. 

6. Moreover, the miseries of the world do not spring mainly 
from material incongruities or physical defects. They origi- 
nate in the violation of moral obligation. The conditions of 
human well-being, even for the present state, are mainly 
moral ; and so long as the possibility of a future existence 
cannot be denied, the sins and crimes of the present must 
cast dark shadows of foreboding over all that may be yet to 
come. Of all sciences, therefore, moral science occupies the 



88 SOUECES OF KNOWLEDGE. 

most commanding position, and the moral constitution of 
the world is of infinitely vaster and deeper interest than its 
physical. 

7. But, apart from revelation, what resources for the inves- 
tigation of the laws and constitution of this system, are within 
our reach ? We have the facts of human experience, as well 
as those of the constitution of human nature. The relation 
between thoughts, emotions, actions and courses of action, and 
their consequences, opens to us a broad and almost exhaust- 
less field. The conditions of human existence which necessi- 
tate trial, disciphne, and the development of character, may be 
studied. The social nature of man, as illustrated by domes- 
tic and civil government operating to check willfulness and 
passion ; indeed, the entire constitution of hmnan nature, 
physical, mental and moral, will reward a diligent search. We 
have thus ample materials within our reach, and in the broad 
sphere of analogy, we have suggestions as to their inter- 
pretation. The moral, throughout the human sphere, is 
inseparably connected with the physical. Their mutual 
adjustments and harmonies, or correspondencies, show that 
they have the same author. The analogies between them are 
numberless, and it is by the use of reason in the sphere of 
analogy, that we must endeavor to apprehend and interpret 
the laws and constitution of the Moral System. 



II. 



THE COMPLEX ELEMENTS OF MAN's NATUKE IN THEIE MUTUAL 

EELATIONS. 

The facts, known or accessible, which serve to illustrate the 
laws and constitution of the moral system, are so numerous 
and varied, that, to obtain anything like a comprehensive 
view of them, we must adopt some method of classification. 
"Without this, their very multitude may sometimes serve to 



CLASSIFICATION. 89 

confuse rather than convince, while we are in danger also of 
omitting some of the most important. 

Perhaps the simplest and yet broadest classification may he 
found in considering man's complex nature in its relations, 
1. to its own elements; 2. to the material universe and its 
laws ; 3. to society in its various forms and organizations ; 
while, 4. the moral constitution of man may be reserved for 
separate consideration. We shall thus, at least, have the 
broad field of our investigation mapped out before us, while 
the facts that come under our notice will take their proper 
place in the comprehensive scheme to which they belong. 
We commence, then, with an examination of the relations of 
man's complex nature to the elements which constitute it. 

Man has a physical, mental or intellectual, and emotional 
or moral nature. These are combined to constitute the in- 
dividual. Excess or defect of any one part or element, with 
respect to the others, disturbs the order and mars the sym- 
metry of the whole. This fact is significantly intimated in 
the familiar phrase — " a sound mind in a sound body." In 
any case, excess or defect brings a kind of retribution with it. 

1. Whatever limits the normal control of the mind over 
the body ; whatever renders the latter an ineffective or imper- 
fect instrument of the fomier; whatever detracts from its 
healthful activity, or makes it act with a spasmodic and inter- 
mittent energy — disturbs that equilibrium of the entire com- 
posite nature on which healthful enjoyment or happiness de- 
pends. Yet we know that the ultimate, and sometimes direct 
effect of vicious indulgence, is to disturb that equilibrium, 
sometimes transiently, but sometimes permanently. Excess 
of passion or passionate emotion produces deleterious effects 
upon the frame, ranging from temporary disability to perma- 
nent paralysis. Such excess results from the violation of the 
laws which virtue prescribes, and morality sanctions. It rarely, 
if ever, takes place except when there is a manifest moral 
transgression, or sin that challenges its penalty. 

This penalty, in some cases, is so manifestly such, that its 
retributive character admits of no dispute. Men have been 
rendered speechless, or even powerless, by the violence of 
their passion. The limbs, trembling or paralyzed, have ro 



90 HUMAN I^TATUEE. MUTUAL EEL,ATIO]SrS. 

fused to perform their office. Deatli even, lias sometimes 
been the effect of frenzy. The body could no longer bear 
the intense strain to wbicb it was subjected, and it may be 
said to have fallen a victim to tlie intemperate passions of the 
soul. 

There are cases, also, where the retribution comes in the 
form of physical disease. A morbid state of the physical 
system is induced by the intensity of the desires, by the rest- 
lessness of passions that rebel against reason ; and in nervous 
prostration or exhaustion, in feverish excitement, in restless- 
ness or depression, the foundation is laid for diseases that may 
inflict months or years of torture, and, in the end, prove 
fatal. 

2. The action of the passions or of the emotional nature 
upon the intellect, or even the entire mental constitution, is 
next to be considered. A grievance, real, or imaginary, is 
brooded over ; an object of desire absorbs the thoughts ; a 
secret grief is indulged beyond the bounds of reason, or there 
is some other violation of the normal limits of the affections. 
It may be that avarice, ambition, anger, love or jealousy, is 
allowed to gain almost exclusive possession of the soul. Here- 
by, the intellect, or the entire mental constitution, is variously 
affected. Sometimes its normal action is distm'bed ; or its 
powers are dwarfed, or act only with an intermittent energy. 
This may prepare the way for still more disastrous results. 
Insanity, in some of its countless phases and degrees, may be . 
one of these. The lunatic — criminal by no civil statute — ^has 
violated a law of his mental constitution, and, in his pitiable 
condition, is a victim of the retribution which he has himseK 
challenged. The rule of reason has been violated, and the 
penalty of sin comes in the shape of the dethronement of 
reason itself. It is an awful penalty, the more impressive 
that it comes without the interposition of any visible or pal- 
pable instrumentality. 

But it is only in extreme and exceptional eases that such a 
result is witnessed. An excess of anger — though tenned a 
short insanity — may disturb the intellect only temporarily. 
And yet, during the brief period that it prevails, it may bhnd 
the reason ; it may suppress the voice of prudence and reflec- 



EFFECTS OF SENSUAL INDTJLGENCE. 91 

tion, and tlius allow a man to be pushed on to acts of folly^ 
or, perhaps, of crime. For the time being, the man is brutal- 
ized. He is intellectually and morally degraded. Dming 
this period of suspended r.eason, he is left free to commit 
those acts which will become the torture of his future years, 
or which may possibly throw their dark shadow over all his 
prospects. 

And what is true of the e:Sects of anger may be true, to a 
modified extent, in the case of other passions. As they gain 
the ascendancy, they rule the whole man, degrading, if not 
deposing, reason, and violating that sense of right — ^hereafter 
to be noted — which is one of the most sacred trusts of the 
human soul. The retribution which they invite is S"wift and 
sure. There is no escape from it. The sin is, in fact, its own 
punishment ; it becomes habitual, and dominates the whole 
nature ; it transforms that nature, and makes of it an intel- 
lectual and moral deformity. 

3. If we turn now to consider the action of the body and 
its appetites upon the intellectual and emotional nature, we 
shall find that physical indulgence, or excess, beyond the 
bounds assigned by reason and conscience, has its legitimate 
and inevitable penalty. The physical appetites demand satis- 
faction, yet there is a limit which must not be transgressed. 
It is fixed by the constitution of the body, and must be dis- 
covered by reason. To pass it, as in the case of gluttony, in- 
temperance, lust, or any sensual appetite, tends to stupefy the 
intellect, and blunt the moral sense. Its brutalizing effect is 
sometimes seen in forms so odious as to excite disgust, indig- 
nant rebuke, or contempt. Manhood is perverted, or even 
temporarily extinguished. A debased nature emits mere 
sparks of intelligence, loses all sense of propriety, disregards 
consequences, is lost to all sense of its ov/n shame, and be- 
comes a satire on humanity itseK. Every better hope is 
crushed; every higher aspiration is quenched; and the victim 
of appetite acquiesces in a degradation, which, once contem- 
plated, would have filled him with shuddering horror. 

4. But the moral nature is even a more pitiable victim 
than the intellect. Sensibility to moral distinctions is sadly 
weakened, if not quite destroyed. "What remains of intellect 



92 EEWAED OF VIRTUE. 

is sharpened into activity to prolong an indulgence that has 
become habitual. The victim may even glory in his own 
shame. He may exult in his triumph over seK-respect. He 
recognizes no law but his own appetites and lusts. The 
exhibition that he makes of himself is but a shameless parade 
of what all others must regard as a terrible retribution. 

5. But the reward of virtue is seen in the effect upon the 
intellect and the moral nature, when appetite is kept in check, 
and the lusts of sense are regulated by sound discretion and 
subjected to moral restraint. Then the intellect is clear and 
unclouded. It can put forth its unimpaired and entire 
energies. It is best prepared to grapple with every problem 
and every difficulty that comes in its way. The moral nature 
also asserts its vigor. It is unbiased by sensualism. It discerns 
clearly what duty is, and is prepared to embrace it. As 
appetite grows weaker by habitual subjection, virtuous habits 
grow stronger. The very aspect of a soul, unswerving in its 
allegiance to its moral convictions, is equivalent to a demon- 
stration of the superior nature and the rewards of virtue. 

6. It remains, under this branch of our subject, only to 
consider the relation of the intellect to the physical con- 
stitution and the emotional nature. The cultivation of the 
intellect may not be equivalent to a virtue, but the neglect of 
it, at least, is immoral. We feel instinctively that its demand 
for knowledge and culture should be gratified, and to deny 
this demand is a kind of homicide ; it is quenching the very 
life of reason itself. Looked upon in this light, it is nothing 
short of a crime, and a crime that invites and insures its 
retribution. This retribution is seen, not only in the degrada- 
tion and dwarfing of the intellect, but in the legitimate or 
natural result of this ; the denying the body that care and 
provision which only the thoughtful and well-fm-nished 
intellect will make. There is a criminal ignorance, and with 
ignorance, indifference as to what actually constitutes physical 
well-being. There is an ignorance of the laws of health and 
the means of proper physical development. There is, con- 
sequently, a constant exposure to conditions that produce 
discomfort, disease, feebleness, and premature decay. Tens 
of thousands in pur large cities suffer as the victims of 



PENALTIES OF IGNORANCE. 93 

ignorance and the lack of intellectual culture ; and that 
suffering cramps their energies, affects their health, and per- 
manently injures their physical development. They are the 
victims of violated law. They are enduring a penalty whose 
infliction proclaims the certainty and severity of the retribu- 
tion they have provoked. 

7. That the moral or emotional nature should sympathize 
in such suffering, is inevitable. It is dragged downward, 
and degraded by its physical sm-roundings. But, apart from 
these, it suffers by evil that is done the intellect in denying 
it due culture. Those relations, from the study of which the 
sense of duty is quickened, are feebly and inadequately rep- 
resented. Superior intellectual discernment may not, indeed, 
be essential to high moral excellence, but moral excellence is 
prejudiced by the feebleness of intellectual perception. All 
other things being equal, increased intellectual culture will 
help forward moral development, and this development may 
thus become, in a measure, the reward of a virtuous regard 
for the claims of intellectual culture. 



III. 



man's relations, physical, intellectual, and moral, to 
the external world. 

Having noted briefly those facts which are brought out in 
the study of the mutual relation of the elements of man's 
complex nature, our next step is to consider the relations of 
this nature to its physical conditions. Here a threefold 
classification may be made, and we may inquire how man 
stands related, physically, intellectually, and morally, to the 
material universe. Taking first into view man's physical 
nature, its most prominent relations to the external world are 
those of adaptation and antagonism. The latter is the first to 
be apprehended, and that through which individuality is de- 
fined and developed. 

1. Matter uniformly offers resistance to physical effort. It 



94 THE MATERIAL WORLD AND MAN". 

sets limits to human strength as well as will. The child 
strikes his foot against a stone, and finding how futile it is to 
discharge his resentment against it, is forced to submit to the 
conditions of prudence and precaution. His powers are 
limited, and he must confess it to himself. He cannot grasp 
the stars, though he may crj for them. His turbulent will, 
unchecked by domestic discipline, finds a barrier in the 
material creation that it cannot break over. It cannot snatch 
and appropriate at its caprice. It is subjected to a relentless 
and rigid discipline that limits its will, and sternly demands 
submission. There is no room for teasing or importunity 
here. ITature's solemn silence gives back no echo to the 
petulant cry. Here, therefore, at the outset, in the collision 
of will with physical obstacles, we have a moral discipline 
that no one can escape. 

2. But we must go a step further. If nature blocks our 
way with countless absolute impossibihties, there are points 
where she yields to sagacity, labor, and art. On certain con- 
ditions she will surrender her treasures, but these conditions 
must be complied with. Here, the intellect — instead of the 
body conjoined with the will — comes into collision with the 
external world. We find ourselves subjected to the necessity 
of solving the problem — how may we extort from nature 
the materials and provisions necessary to our comfortable 
subsistence ? The problem must be solved. The intellect 
must gi-apple with it. Thus it is forced to study nature and 
her laws. It is put under an involuntary and inevitable 
tuition. Under the penalty of starvation and suifering, it 
must explore and discover, and store up facts, and deduce 
laws, and then consider how, with skill and toil, advantage 
may be taken of those laws. Here, therefore, the broad field 
of natural science is thrown open as a book to be studied. In 
the study, an order and system are discovered, so surprising, 
that even the undevout are sometimes constrained to admire 
it as divine. There is a regularity and uniformity, a breadth 
and vastness, a " reign of law," so magnificent that the mind 
contemplates it with awe, and is familiarized with the great 
idea of an universal dominion, that embraces in its immense 
sweep, worlds and atoms, worms and men. The apprehension! 



THE MATERIAL WORLD AND THE mTELLECT. 95 

may be simply intellectual, but the impression is moral, and 
tbe grand practical lesson is emphasized by the entire order 
of nature — that man cannot be exempt from subjection to uni- 
versal law. He cannot be an anomaly in the universal system. 

3. Meanwhile the intellect is expanded and developed by 
the task imposed upon it. Eorced to grapple with difficulties, 
to toil for the knowledge that more than repays the toil, it is 
disciplined to thought ; it is educated to enlarge the grasp of 
its comprehension ; it is better prepared to study profounder 
problems — if such there be — than it has been confronted with 
hitherto. ISTor is this all. Taste is educated and refined. 
!N^ature — with its beauties, its grandeurs, its sublime order, its 
silent eloquence of universal law, its varied music, swelling 
from the insect's hum to the thunder's peal — is making im- 
pressions, or putting forth efforts, as it were, at impression, 
wliich tend to elevate the soul and emancipate it from abject 
serfdom to sense and passion. In all this, there is something, 
if not directly moral, at least kindred to moral training, and 
harmonizing grandly with a scheme that makes man the 
subject of moral training and discipline. 

4. But while the intellect has performed a portion of its 
task in mastering certain obvious facts, the structure and 
laws of the physical universe — not the least important matter 
in studying the relation of our complex nature to that uni- 
verse — still remains to be considered. We must use our 
knowledge. We must avail ourselves of our acquaintance 
with the laws that have been discovered. We have found 
that the seed will produce a harvest " after its kind," under 
certain conditions. We must master those conditions and 
sow the seed. We have found out the veins of metal in the 
rock or the mine, and that art is necessary to extract them. 
We must apply the art. We have discovered the nature of 
materials, and the uses to which they can be put to construct 
a ship or a dwelling, and it remains for us to procure and 
shape and apply the materials. 

5. Here is a call to industry, a summons to break away 
from idleness and idle habits and the vices they engender, and 
apply om' energies in spheres of utility and public beneficence. 
It is in industry, in honest toil, honest workmanship, mutual 



9G OEDEE OF THE PHYSIC Ai TJNIVEESE. 

help, grappling in a hand-to-hand conflict to make nature 
pliant to our will, that character is formed, energy is 
developed, and the soul, rich in the exercise of disciplined 
powers, is fitted to become the seed-plot for all moral excel- 
lence. We should not need to search far in history to find 
that it has not been under the most genial skies, or on the 
most luxuriant and fertile soil, but oftentimes where climate 
was bleak and soil rugged, that the noblest specimens of 
manhood have been produced. ITot in the lap of ease has 
the highest virtue been nurtured. Oftenest has it been 
found in the frame of those kindred qualities that have been 
schooled in hardship and perfected by endurance. Thus the 
physical world, meeting men with the sharp admonition — toil 
or starve — ^has become a stern but beneficent teacher of excel- 
lences of character, that, if not virtue itseK, are yet akin to it 
— its natural allies and supports. 

6. The fixed order of the material universe, also, disciphnes 
man to the habitual recognition of law, and in that recognition 
there is a moral element. The sun rises and sets with such 
uniform regularity as to measure out and allot to man his 
seasons of toil and rest. The regular revolution of the 
seas(ps, bringing about spring and autumn, seed-time and 
harvest, imposes upon man the necessity of acting seasonably, 
and with forethought ; teaching him to observe times and 
seasons, and avail himself of fit opportunities of effort. 
Thus he is, as it were, compelled to something like regularity 
in his habits ; his activities must conform to the conditions 
imposed by fixed laws, and he must take into account such 
revolutions of the seasons, of day and night, summer and 
winter, as his experience soon teaches him to expect. The 
importance of all this, as an element of moral training, will 
be seen, if we consider what the effect would be of a suspen- 
sion of this established order of the material world. Yirtue 
would scarcely subsist in a state of things where all regular 
activity, all uniformity of life, all necessity or even possibility 
of wise and calculating forethought, was suspended. 

II. — 1. But in the relations of man to the external world, 
those of mutual adaptation must not be overlooked. Some 
of these have been glanced at already in considering those 



ADAPTATIONS OF MATTER TO MES'D. 97 

aspects of the apparent antagonism into whicli man is brought 
with nature. There are others, however, in wliich an element 
of moral discipline is involved. 

2. The physical world addresses itseK to the senses, the 
tastes, the susceptibilities of men, inviting them, as it were, 
to enjoyment and activity. It calls forth and stimulates the 
powers both of mind and body, and ministers to their satis- 
faction. There is beauty for the eye, music for the ear, 
fragrance for the smell ; there are prizes for invention, 
rewards for industry, premiums on forethought. Here are 
countless incentives to healthful activity, the activity that 
best consists with virtue, and only unnaturally can be made 
to consist with vice. There are problems of art and mysteries 
of science, awaiting a solution, and calculated to elevate the 
thoughts and auns of men from every low, groveling, or 
sensual sphere. The withdrawal of all these would indis- 
putably be morally disastrous. Social energy would stagnate 
or prey upon itself. Yice would have an almost undisputed 
and vacant field, abandoned to it without a rival. 

3. But the relation of the body specifically to the external 
world, needs to be noted. That relation, through mutual 
adaptation, is such that physical comfort, or health and vigor, 
are made to depend on conformity to physical la^^s. A 
vitiated atmosphere is poisonous, and must be avoided. 
Extremes of cold and heat, through sudden exposure, 
generate disease. There is an almost infinite variety of 
substances, from the simplest fruits of the earth to the most 
elaborate mixtures of art, which addi'ess themselves to the 
bodily appetite, but which must be partaken of seasonably 
and in moderation. There are fixed laws, limiting in- 
dulgence, and although physical rather than moral laws, 
the heedless transgression of them is a moral offense, and 
incurs inevitable penalty. Here, therefore, man is sub- 
jected to a moral tuition. He is placed under restraint. 
He is put under bonds, as it were, thoughtfully to maintain 
the correspondence between the exercise of his appetites and 
the laws and nature of material things. His whole life must 
of necessity become a continuous adjustment, an habitual 
recognition of the relations in which he stands to the material 

7 



98 SOCIAL OKG^VNIZATIOlSr. 

world and its laws. He must respect the laws of gravitation, 
at the risk of fractured limbs. He mnst respect the laws of 
healthful respiration and activity, under the penalty of severe 
suffering, or perhaps fatal disease. He must put limits on 
the exercise of his powers, on the indulgence of his appetites, 
on the sequence or intensity of effort with which he pursues 
chosen objects ; continually bridling his impulses, continually 
providing for emergencies, studiously taking advantage of the 
forces of nature, and by forethought converting them into 
his allies ; and in aE this he is subjected to what — if not 
moral discipline — is so analogous to it, so in harmony with it, 
that his relations to the external world constitute a very 
important part of that moral order of the world to which he 
is subject. His physical well-being is conditioned on the 
self-control, the forethought, the industry, and the energy 
which he may exhibit. For these, there are rewards ; for the 
lack or disregard of them, there are penalties ; and these 
rewards and penalties are so sure and inevitable, that they are 
obvious to even a limited experience, and no man can have 
any excuse for disregarding them. 



lY. 

SOCIAL OEGAlSriZATION, AS BELATED TO THE MORAL SYSTEM. 

The relations of man to society are numerous and complex. 
Society, from its very nature, must impose some restraint 
upon those who compose it. Unrestricted liberty of action or 
appropriation is impossible. The wrong-doer comes into col- 
lision with social forces, which, in the aggregate, are over- 
whelmingly superior to his own. In committing a social 
offense, in violating a law of the state, he matches his in- 
dividual strength and resources against the united strength of 
the community. He exposes himself to the social or civil 
penalt}'', and that penalty, in the normal condition and action 
of society, will be in the interests of justice. 

1. And here it is important to note the grounds upon which 
it can be claimed that the discipline and restraints of social 



OKGANIZATION FAVOES VIRTUE. 99 

life are legitimately on the side of virtue. "We may suppose 
cases where the individual comes into collision with society, 
in which the right is upon his side, and its triumph over him 
physically, or socially, or legally, would he the triumph of 
wrong. But these cases are exceptional. They occur only 
where social order is perverted, or social obligations and rela- 
tions are falsely defined. The first point to be settled there- 
fore, is, what is the moral relation of society, as organized — 
that is, with the mutual relations and obligations of its mem- 
bers defined by law or equity — ^to the individual ? Is it such 
as, from the nature of society itseK, as organized, to favor 
virtue and justice ? The answer to this will be obvious in 
view of a fact, which, in itself considered, is of vast signifi- 
cance, and bears emphatic testimony to the existence of the 
moral constitution of the world. This fact is, that social or- 
ganization, regarded in itself, and irrespective of its avowed 
objects, which may be either good or evil, is always on the 
side of virtue. It is not virtuous in itself, any more than the 
architecture of a dwelling is. It is a mechanism, which may 
be pronounced good or evil in proportion as it is wisely or 
unwisely constructed to attain its ends, but not good or evil 
in a moral sense. Yet, as an operative practical mechanism, 
it must be constructed on principles approximately just, and 
to some extent it must favor justice, as it aims at'the common 
secm-ity and welfare. 

2. Human society cannot be permanently maintained 
without organization. Individual interest or passion would 
soon work its dissolution or overthrow, unless subjected to 
some restraint. Those rules of social duty which are abso- 
lutely essential to social order, must have public and general 
recognition, and they must become authoritative as the law 
of the state. But these rules are emphatically moral. They 
limit violence and passion. They recognize a common good 
upon which no individual must be allowed to encroach. 

3. But even this does not give adequate expression to that 
necessity by which social organization is made to represent 
justice. The combination of the social elements may bring 
together, we may suppose, nothing but what is, individually, 
completely selfish. Self-interest, we may freely concede, is 



100 SELFISHNESS LIMITINa SELFISHNESS. 

all that impels to combination and organization. Self-interest 
is that which protects and maintains the organization. And 
yet, if it is maintained, it is a limitation and check upon self- 
ishness and selfish passion. It operates in the interests of 
justice. Each individual, looking only to his own advantage, 
might wish to have the exclusive privilege of plundering 
others, but he wants no one else to enjoy that privilege. If 
we consider the same thing to be true of all others, and then 
sum up the result, we shall find that a thousand citizens, if 
there are so many in the social organization, would concede 
the fatal privilege only to one citizen of the state, and deny 
it to the other nine hundred and ninety-nine. In other words, 
the general sentiment is as a thousand to one nearly, on the 
side of equal rights or public justice. So that social organiza- 
tion necessarily results in checking the selfishness of each by 
the aggregate selfishness of the state, and while no individual 
has any high respect for an abstract justice or the common 
good, his very selfishness prompts him, for his own sake, to 
sustain institutions which operate to check violence, and re- 
press and punish crime. 

4. But, moreover, in the construction of the social organ- 
ism, the principles of equal justice must be studied and ap- 
plied. Men cannot be brought to act together to a common 
end, except by laying aside, for the time, at least, whatever is 
so mutually repugnant as to repel confidence and co-operation. 
They must, to some extent, trust one another. They must 
be true and faithful to the end they have in view, so far as 
mutual intercourse is concerned. Their constitution, if they 
have one, must enjoin this. Their laws, if they have them, 
must punish the lack of this as criminal. Those laws, also, 
must recognize the rights of the members of the society. If 
these are questioned, they must call in justice — and substan- 
tially the same justice that our courts administer — to adjudi- 
cate them. If there are penalties, these must bear something 
like a just proportion to their crimes ; and all this would be 
true, even of a band of pirates and robbers. A society thor- 
oughly vicious, and vicious in all the mutual relations of the 
members that compose it, would be — among beings constituted 
as men are — an impossibility. It would be seK-annihilating. 



JUSTICE A FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 101 

It would have neither frame-work or connections. "Without 
the moral cement of confidence, and a confidence that must 
have its support in moral elements of character that warrant 
it, society would be, ipso facto, dissolved. It would be no 
more than a mere temporary aggregation of selfish sand grains, 
to be dispersed by the first breath of suspicion. 

5. There is, then, in all social organization an absolute 
necessity of the recognition of justice, and of the rights of 
justice. 1S.0 body of men could maintain permanent relations 
to one another without such recognition. The language of 
Fisher Ames, in his memorable speech on the faith of treaties, 
is fully warranted by the necessary laws of mutual confidence 
and co-operation — " K there could be a resurrection at the 
foot of the gallows ; if the victims of public justice could 
live again, unite and form themselves into a society, they 
would find themselves constrained, however loth, to adopt the 
very principles of that justice by which they suffered, as the 
fundamental law of their state." 

That this is so, is also obvious when we consider the neces- 
sary conditions of success, in case a corporation, or any body 
of men, conspire to nefarious ends — to plunder individuals or 
the state. There is inevitably an element of mutual distrust, 
and yet trust must be reposed somewhere. That trust will be 
reposed, not indiscriminately, but in that individual, if such 
an one can be found, who is known to keep his word, to scorn 
treachery, or to fear an oath. He will be elevated to the 
place of honor or confidence. , He will be entrusted with the 
books, the seal, the treasures\ of the community ; for there 
must be at least something thai can be called " honor " even 
among thieves. Without this! they would soon betray one 
another, and be dispersed by th^ir mutual distrust. 

6. We see, therefore, that fecial organization — no more 
virtuous in itself than parlian^entary rules of order — ^is, con- 
sidered simply as organization,! on the side of virtue. If a 
band of gamblers wish to erecl a magnificent structure as a 
den into which to entice their victims, they must yet conform 
to certain physical laws, in which the recognition of mathe- 
matical truth is involved. They will not allow their architect 
to ignore the law of gravitation, or knowingly use an incor- 



102 CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN VICE. 

rect pinmb-line or a defective measure. They will not allow 
the multiplication-table to be falsified, so as to imbed a lie 
in every stone, and a geometrical iniquity in every angle, in 
order to harmonize their structure with the ends it is designed 
to subserve. And so a band of unscrupulously selfish men, in 
forming their compact, even though to an iniquitous end, find 
themselves constrained to recognize the worth of the moral 
elements of character, some of which, however associated 
with perverse principle or practice, they regard as indis- 
pensable to success. Without something to inspire a measure 
of confidence, they would pause helpless on the threshold of 
their enterprise. Indeed, the most absolutely powerless or- 
ganization of which we can form any conception, would be 
one composed of elements so thoroughly wicked as to utterly 
destroy all mutual confidence. It would be palsied by its own 
iniquity. It wouH be afraid of itself. It could hope to hold 
together only by means of elements, in a measure, incongru- 
ous to itself. In its attempts at organization and co-operation, 
it pays an involuntary homage to virtue. In its final failure, 
its doom is oftenest the result of its own inherent vice. 

Y. In what has been said, the inherent weakness of vice, 
and the inherent strength of virtue, have been intimated. 
This contrast between the two runs through the whole scheme 
of things. We note it first in the individual himself. Here 
and there we meet with a character in which one over-master- 
ing passion predominates. All the energies of body and 
mind are made subservient to its gratification. But usually, 
while one passion maintains its superiority, there are, in the 
evil-disposed, subordinate passions or appetites, which divide 
among themselves the energies of the soul. The result is 
that they cannot be concentrated to one end. One passion 
checks or limits the indulgence of another. By a keen 
observer of men it was once remarked of another, whose 
character he had critically studied, that he had been amused 
to watch the conflict between his ambition and his avarice. 
Here two passions in the same individual drew him in 
opposite directions, and as the inequitable result, they, in a 
measure, counteracted one another. This is ever the case 
where evil passions impel to diverse ends and gratifications. 



THE ENSKGIES OF VIHTUE IIASMONIOUS. 108 

Vice is weakened by its own discords, inseparable from it. 
This is true in tlie individual, and it is equally true in society. 
When men conspire for evil, each brings to the conspiracy 
his own peculiar selfishness. Discord, ere long, is almost 
inevitable. It is only the element of fear that suppresses its 
manifestation. If all could unite heartily, and pursue per- 
manently the one common object, their united strength and 
resources might prove irresistible. But such union can rarely 
— we might say never — be achieved. Selfish depravities 
have their own separate interests. The triumph of one 
threatens the defeat of another, and must be defeated itself. 
Hence defection, counter-working, undermining, and con- 
spiracies within conspiracies. Yice casts the stone amid the 
harvest host, sprung from its own dragon's-teeth, and the host 
melts away by mutual destruction. Many is the illustration 
which history affords of this truth, and every such illustra- 
tion is a testimony to the inherent weakness of vice. 

On the other hand, the very nature of virtue is such that 
it can combine and co-operate with whatsoever is virtuous, 
without any loss or diversion of energy. Good men can act 
together. The ends they have in view harmonize. The 
selfish, separating element is ke})t in the background. Each 
has a regard for the common good which overrides any sense 
of private advantage. The object to be pursued in common, 
can be agreed upon. It can be distinctly presented, and 
exhibited, without disguise or arts of concealment. There 
can be a thorough mutual understanding as to what it is, and 
in what manner it shall be pursued. There is by no means 
any necessary conflict in the mode of pm-suing it, especially 
when virtue dictates the withdrawal of all selfish objections. 
'Not is this all. Good men can trust one another. They are 
not disquieted by fear of being betrayed. They have con- 
fidence in one another, and for that very reason a gi*eater 
confidence in themselves, and in their own success — assm-ed 
as they are of hearty and permanent mutual support. Thus 
it is that they can act as a unit. They can concentrate their 
energies. They fear no undermining, no betrayal. Strong 
in conscious integrity, they are strong also in the assured 
approval, not only of those who directly co-operate with them, 



104 THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETT. 

but of all good men. They have the best elements of pnbUc 
opinion on their side. This is enough to inspire courage, to 
strengthen resolve, to re-invigorate energy. 

8. But the aggregate of the social force for good will be 
increased by individual contributions, that, instead of cancel- 
ing, supplement each other. As vice is weakened by diverse 
passions, that can rarely harmonize, virtue is strengthened by 
diverse, yet ever kindred excellences of character. The ends 
that the good man seeks may be various ; all of them may not 
be attainable ; it may be necessary for him to make a selec- 
tion ; but they are not, like the ends that vice pursues, dis- 
cordant and mutually prejudicial or destructive, and hence 
there is nothing to forbid the concentration of his powers on 
the attainment of his chosen objects. To their pursuit, he 
may devote the full sti'ength of his being, and what he may 
do, other good men may do lilvewise. The aggregate result 
is such that the virtuous state finds in the union of its sub- 
jects, few elements of weakness or defection, and it may 
safely calculate on a measure of co-operation and support, 
which to vice is not merely impracticable, but impossible. 



Y. 

man's relations to social OEGANTZATION, and to SOCIETT. 

Having noted the laws and forces, inherent in social 
organization and relations, that are arrayed on the side of 
justice and virtue, we have next to consider what the pre- 
sumed, if not necessary, effect will be, when the individual 
comes into connection or collision with social order. 

Passing over what we must consider abnormal in the 
political sphere — where, for instance, usurped power must 
be resisted — we direct our attention, iii-st, to the case of the 
offender against civil justice. He invades his neighbor's 
rights. He defrauds him, or he assaults him by violence, 
wronging him in person or property. Here injustice is 
committed, and the state, by a necessity it cannot evade, 
must deal with it. There is no absolute certainty, perhaps, 



THE CEIMINAL AND THE STATE. 105. 

that the criminal will be detected ; or, if detected, convicted ; 
or, if convicted, pnnislied. But the presumptions are against 
his escape. He is one against thousands. He has made him- 
self the enemj of all. Friends he may have, but he cannot 
be sure that they will not turn against him. If he temporarily 
escapes justice, he cannot escape his own fears. He knows 
that Justice is in pursuit of him. He knows that the attempt 
to conceal himself, or his crime, is beset with countless diffi- 
culties, and that the least clew that directs suspicion against 
him may awake suspicions in new quarters, or memories of 
old crime, till the chain of adverse testimony has all its 
missing links supplied. 

2. In case of detection and arrest, the hope of escaping 
conviction may still be cherished. There are judges that 
pay slight regard to the claims of justice. They may be 
approached by bribes. They may be themselves overawed. 
But against all this, it must be borne in mind, that the judge 
does not make the law, and that, even against all his inclina- 
tions, he may be forced to state the law to the jury with an 
impartiality that will insure conviction. He cannot rule 
against the plain letter of the law. He cannot ignore pre- 
cedents. His post of duty makes him a kind of finger on 
the dial-plate of civil justice, moved by forces independent of 
his will. Here, again, the result of social organization is seen 
in the fact that even the unscrupulous judge, by the very 
circumstances of his position and trust, is sometimes made to 
pronounce the sentence that breaks up schemes of iniquity, in 
the gains of which he was himself an accomplice. 

3. Thus, in dealing with the criminal, all the forces of the 
state are legitimately arrayed against evil, and on the side of 
justice. The choice must be made between public insecurity 
on the one hand, and the impunity of the criminal on the 
other. This results from the constitution of society itself, 
and this constitution is the result of the natural order of 
things. It takes its place as an essential element in the moi^al 
system, and is in full co-operation with it. 

4. Kindred in some respects to civil, is domestic govern- 
ment. In many cases, indeed, it scarcely deserves the name. 
Parental vice or profligacy may bequeath a curse rather than 



106 DOMESTIC TRAINING. 

a blessing to tlie household. But where this is the case, it is 
in violation of the legitimate scope and evident design of the 
family institution. The child is supposed and presumed to 
be in the hands of its natural guardians, who will seek its wel- 
fare, and warn it of what is harmful. To this thej stand 
pledged by manifest duty and natural aifection. But a hmited 
sagacity and narrow experience on their part, suffice to show 
them that the child's welfare is identified with purity of life 
and virtuous habits. Unless grossly false to their trust, their 
example, influence and teaching will be studiously kept on the 
side of truthfulness, temperance and virtue. If they exercise 
discipline, it is to be presumed that it will be to restrain evil 
and mischievous propensities. If there are differences be- 
tween those who are equally the objects of their affection, it 
is to be presumed that they will be settled, as nearly as possi- 
ble, by the rules of impartial justice. 

Thus, at the outset of hfe, when passions are developing 
themselves, and are unused to restraint, they are subjected to 
a loving and wise supervision, and the will that, if left un- 
checked, would become tyrannic, is subjected to a discipline 
that is dictated by the common interest of the household. 
And sometimes, where vice has made the parent its victim, 
natural affection comes in to shield the child. Many a parent 
has acquiesced in his own ruin, even while striving to rescue 
his offspring from the associations of evil in which he had 
himself become hopelessly involved. This feature of the 
family institution is a most eloquent testimony, not merely 
to the superiority of virtue, and the terrible apprehension 
which vice is calculated to excite, but to the fact, that even in 
the depth of degradation, a genuine natural affection may be 
found to co-operate with a virtue from which it is itself 
estranged. 

5. Nor must we overlook the tendencies inherent in acad- 
emic training, and the youthful associations it creates. The 
associations, competitions and rivalries of early years, are not 
without their moral value. Those who are brought together 
in sports and studies, are forced, to some extent, to adopt 
common moral judgments. In their dealings with one an- 
other, each act, each invasion of another's right, each generous 



ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE. 107 

concession, is subjected to a verdict, tlioiigli not formally 
giren, of a jury of tlieir peers. They are educating one an- 
otlier, and altliougti often, by example, by speech, by mutual 
intercourse, leading to evil, yet at the same time constraining 
one another, in a most effective manner, to the recognition of 
justice and respect for what is upright, noble or true. 

In the school-room the education goes on. It is not the 
education of boohs merely. Order must be observed. Merit 
must be conceded. Kules, that have a moral obligation as 
well as propriety in them, must be laid down and observed. 
Lessons of obedience to law, confirmatory of those of domes- 
tic discipline, must be learned ; mutual relations, and with 
them, mutual duties, must be defined ; the necessity of dili- 
gence and application must be enforced ; forethought for the 
future must be constantly impressed, and while all this may 
work no reform where vice has preoccupied the ground, it 
must be conceded to lend all its influence, so far as it is legiti- 
mate, to the side of virtue. 

6. And here we must consider what may be called the 
social training of the intellect, or the relation of society to 
man's mental constitution, taking it up in connection with 
the academic training of the intellect which precedes and 
prepares the way for it. In the school, the child is furnished 
with the text-book ; when he leaves it, his text-book is society 
itself. In both eases, the training has a moral element, or, at 
least, is calculated to lead the mind to a recognition at once 
of a physical and moral order of the world. From the mo- 
ment that the child learns his first letter, every step makes 
him familiar with law ; laws of construction, laws of thought ; 
laws of science ; laws of obligation. Letters combine in 
words according to invariable laws. Every word takes its 
place in the sentence in accordance with uniform laws. The 
rules of grammar, the rules of correct speech, the rules of 
arithmetic, the rules of geometry, are the lavs^s whose recog- 
nition conditions progress. Facts are mastered, but facts can 
not be left to loose aggregation. They must be classified by 
scientific laws, and indeed they cannot properly be mastered 
otherwise. Into the confused chaotic mass of fact, law must 
come to educe order, and create a Kosmos. The intellect is 



108 POWER OF SOCIAL INFLIIENCE. 

made cognizant of this. It cannot be educated withont it. 
It is thus familiarized with the subhme idea of the absolute 
supremacy and uniformity of law, and the necessity by which 
man, physically, intellectually and morally, is constrained to 
conform thereto. 

7. Social influence, in the ordinary intercourse of life, is too 
important an element of education to be overlooked. How 
far it enters as an element into the moral order of the world, 
on the side of what is upright and humane and virtuous, it 
becomes us to consider. That it may be perverted, and be- 
come a powerful instrumentality for mischief, does not admit 
of question. As a matter of fact, this is frequently the case. 
In some instances, it exercises a power almost irresistible. It 
sweeps before it the restraints of reason, conscience, law and 
religion. But even in doing this, it demonstrates the concern 
which each individual has in public opinion and social usages, 
and the necessity imposed on all who would save society from 
wreck, to interpose in its behalf. In other words, it testifies 
to individual responsibility and individual duty. 

But the legitimate bearing of social influence, is not to fos- 
ter evil, but to restrain it. A simple fact will illustrate this. 
A vicious man will often shrink from exposing his o^vn vice, 
to a companion whom he knows to be fully as unprincipled as 
himself. He will shrink, in the presence of his comrade, from 
committing the criminal act for which he is fuUy prepared 
when no eye sees him. But when his associates, though far 
from faultless, are yet more upright than himself, he stands 
in awe of their censure. Low as their standard of morality 
may be, it acts as a powerful check upon him. Even in a 
company of villains, the chance that some one may have an 
element of generosity or humanity, or a sense of justice not 
wholly perverted, may have more weight with the would-be 
criminal, than the chances that his crime, when committed, 
will be detected. 

We see the fear — ^thus excited, and acting as a restraint 
upon evil — operating upon minds that can scarcely be reached 
by anything else. There are many bad men who fear nothing 
so much as to have their deeds published. They would keep 
their vice or crime out of the public prints. They would 



VICES THAT SHUN EXPOSUKE. 109 

voluntarily make great pecuniaiy sacrifices — virtually impose 
heavy taxes upon themselves — to escape publicity. Society 
keeps them back from evil by the terror which it inspires, and 
a terror that is independent of law-courts or prisons. 

A fact kindred to this, illustrates the conscious weakness 
of vice — an illustration for which we are indebted to social 
influence. There are some vices that are m.ade disreputable 
by society, and for that reason seek concealment. They shun 
observation. They screen themselves in obscurity or dark- 
ness. These vices are not made disreputable by mere social 
caprice. The infamy they incur is no accident : it comes 
about as a result of the necessary nature and constitution of 
society. It attaches to whatever is prejudicial to social peace, 
purity and security. In self -vindication, society must resent 
the invasion of what is vital to its well-being, and hence, not 
arbitrarily, but of necessity, it brands the invader with social 
outlawry. His defence is in concealment. There may be a 
consciousness of guilt producing cowardice — there often is ; 
but it is enough that society inspires awe, or even terror, on 
account of what would otherwise excite scarcely a scruple. 
Yice is too weak, consciously weak, to face its own guilt in 
the presence of others. 

. But the reverse of this is time of virtue and virtuous action. 
The good man conceals his deeds only through the modesty 
of conscious worth. Society would hail with applause, if 
exhibited, what he keeps in the background. Yet its approval 
and praise are the proper and appropriate meed of virtuous 
deeds. Thus it educates and inspires to generous actions. 
With rarely an exception, as all will admit — without a single 
exception, as some would assert — the deeds which promote 
social well-being are morally good, or at least so far as the 
matter of the act is concerned. As such, they must be, and 
they will be, praised. The effect of such praise, from the 
lips of the orator, the pen of the poet, or the testimony of 
history, is to incite to emulation. Patriotic ardor is aroused, 
public spirit is kindled, generosity and sjanpathy are excited, 
and although these may not be accounted virtue in its highest 
sense, they are alien to all that is low and sordid, or simply 
vicious. 



110 SOCIETY AND PATEIOTISM. 

8. Thus society acts, undesignedly, and by a necessity im- 
posed upon it by tbe author of nature, in the interests and on 
the side of virtue. Traits of character that command admira- 
tion and inspire enthusiasm, are developed by social action and 
influence. By their position as members of society, men who 
would otherwise have been hopelessly involved in the pursuit 
of seMsh schemes, are made acquainted with certain social 
needs, in which moral interests are involved, and, assured that 
their generosity will be appreciated, they come forward to the 
rescue of interests that would otherwise be exposed to suffer, 
and enrich society and the world by their benefactions. Scores 
of public institutions, established in the interests of human- 
ity, learning, good morals or religion, have been endowed by 
men who owe to society itself the inspiration under which 
they have acted. 

9. Some of the most admirable deeds which history records 
have been performed in times, and in the face, of peril, in 
behaK of society. The story of patriotic devotion, which 
thrills us as we read, is a tribute to the moral power of social 
influence. "VYhen the voice of country has called to the 
rescue, a host has spnmg forth, ready to surrender ease and 
wealth, or even life itself, for the common welfare ; and in 
the presence of such devotion, the inherent baseness of vice 
and selfishness lias been made conspicuous by the contrast. If 
patriotism is not a virtue, the lack of it is a vice ; and when 
society brands the vice, it is a volunteer witness to the moral 
order of the world. 

10. Society has its weaknesses and defects ; it has difficul- 
ties to be met and problems to be solved. These difficulties 
and problems it puts in every man's way. To meet or solve 
these is an education in itself, and an education essentially 
moral. Sometimes the problem is simply one of want and 
destitution. It is to be solved by a prompt and generous 
charity that will feed the stai-ving and clothe the naked. Thus 
it educates to charity, and the record of that charity becomes 
one of the brightest pages of history. Sometimes the prob- 
lem to be solved is aggravated by the combination of vice as 
its cause, with want as its result. Here are graver questions 
to be met. But met they must be ; and in forcing men to meet 



SOCIETY AST) LIBERALITY, SOCIAL ETHICS. Ill 

tliem, society is forcing upon public attention the great fact tliat 
individual vice lies at the root of the great mass of the world's 
misery.- Thus it stimulates intellect and sensibihty at once ; 
it sets the philanthropist to work ; it sends a John Howard to 
European jails; it inspires a "Wilberforce to become the 
champion of the wretched victims of the slave traffic ; it sets 
a Rom illy and a Mackintosh to the task of humanizing a bar- 
barous code ; it sends a Livingstone into the heart of unknown 
African wastes, as a pioneer of civilization and a champion of 
the oppressed ; it impels thoughtful men to study the philoso- 
phy of crime, ,to devise remedial schemes for reaching the 
degraded, to set in operation plans for instructing the igno- 
rant, and employing the idle, and recovering the vicious and 
the dissolute. In these, and countless other ways, it tends to 
diffuse information, to secure the co-operation of the good, to 
correct 23ublic opinion, to expose pernicious errors, and to 
make plain the only path along which it is possible for society 
to advance in steady and continuous progress. This state of 
things indicates that society is naturally on the side of virtue. 

11. But we must note, at least, the bearing of society upon 
political ethics and theories. Here, then, is a problem to be 
solved, and society, in offering it, demands a solution. How 
can the liberty of the citizen be made to consist with the wel- 
fare of the state ? How can individual freedom and social 
justice be combined ? It is not too. much to say that the an- 
swers that have been given to these questions, sometimes in 
formal constitutions, sometimes in wise statutes, and some- 
times in elaborate treatises, constitute one of the most valuable 
departments of our literature, and furnish materials which no 
one can peruse without being impressed with the profound 
conviction, that individual integrity and public justice lie at 
the foundation of all stable government. It is thus, also, that 
the nature of vice, as radically destructive of national vigor, 
prosperity and well-being, is fully exposed, and it is made 
clear to every student of political science that the public wel- 
fare is identified with social purity and social virtue. 

12. Society educates, moreover, to that sense of justice, 
without which it cannot itself continue to subsist. Human 
intercourse requires constant interchange of thought and of 



112 PUBLIC CONFIDENCE ON A MOEAL BASIS. 

commodities. It gives birth to commerce, and all the institu- 
tions of commerce and exchange. Political Economy is a 
social science, and there is no truth which it places in a clearer 
light than that the just and the expedient uniformly corre- 
spond in all human transactions. If any deed, any policy, is 
unjust, is false, is fraudulent, promises and does not pay, it 
may be presumed beforehand to be unprofitable. No fraud- 
ful art can extract permanent gain from any measure which 
will not endure a moral as well as a party test. Thus society 
puts forward Political Economy as a witness in behaK of the 
moral order of the world. 

But while doing this, it enforces the lessons of justice in all 
industrial and commercial transactions. It exhibits itself 
stung and wounded by everything which impairs public 
credit, or confidence between man and man. It forces upon 
the mercantile class a re&'pect for integrity, if not integrity it- 
self. It puts a brand upon the man that falsifies his word, 
that allows his note to be protested, that supplies a damaged 
article to the market. It insists upon inviolable truth and 
fidelity to every engagement. But more than this, it illus- 
trates the absolute necessity of virtue to the prosperity and 
extension of commercial transactions. It exhibits to us that 
most curiously complex and intricate structure of commercial 
credit, reaching out to distant states and continents, built up, 
stage after stage, and story after story, on the implied fidelity 
of distant agents and customers, until the signature of a name, 
perhaps, becomes the single bolt upon the strength of which 
the stability of the whole structure depends. And then it 
shows us how this mutually dependent structure is, as a whole, 
dependent on public confidence, which a whisper of suspicion 
may shake, insomuch that it cannot stand without those moral 
qualities on the part of business men, which invite and justify 
trust. Back of all the parade of national wealth and prosper- 
ity, we must go and examine the moral element of society, if 
we would know whether that prosperity rests on a secure basis, 
or is merely a pageant. 

But while scarcely apprehensive of this, or of its profound 
significance, men are educated to commercial truth and justice 
by their own experience. That truth and justice are de- 



SOCIETY A SCHOOL OF MUTUAL HELP. 113 

manded as the necessaiy conditions of success. They are 
demanded by those with whom they deaL Every mercantile 
or industrial exchange is a moral transaction. It introduces 
the question of right, the element of equity. It cannot take 
place without being watched by others, careful and interested 
to detect fraud. It calls for frankness, honesty, incomiptible 
integrity. And when we reflect how universal must be the 
system of exchange in a civilized community, how all-pervad- 
ing is the element of mutual trust, how paralyzing and radi- 
cally destructive is a blow to public coniidence, we may readily 
perceive on what a grand scale society operates to vindicate 
the laws and constitution of the world which favor virtue and 
virtuous action. 

13. If now, turning aside from the broad theatre of public 
life, we pay attention to the relations which spring up in 
more retired or obscure associations, we shall see how the 
social feehngs are educated and trained in favor of humane 
and generous action. The inequalities of social life are no- 
torious, and they are beyond the reach of remedial legislation. 
There must be, if not rich and poor, at least richer and poorer. 
There will also be the more learned and the more ignorant, 
the stronger and the weaker. In other words, there will al- 
ways be the need and call for mutual help. Society is ever 
presenting to each member of it these diversities of social 
condition, and asking for them thoughtful consideration. 
And, to some extent, they must be, and indeed, are consid- 
ered. The result is, that pity is awakened ; sympathy is ex- 
cited ; forbearance is evoked. The ravages of disease ; the 
prevalence of famine ; an injury that prostrates a laborer, and 
robs his family of the means of support ; a sudden illness that 
demands watchful attention and kind offices of friendship — 
all these, and a thousand other incidents that illustrate the 
relative diversities and dependencies of social life, are actually 
the occasions for calling forth self-denying virtues, for bring- 
ing human feelings into exercise, and for lightening the ills 
and calamities of life by the intei-position of friendly service. 
Society thus becomes a school for mutual help. The hardest 
heart is softened by the sight of siiffering which it is im- 
pelled to relieve. Public sympathy is evoked to extend com- 



114 VICE KEPELS SYMPATHY. 

miseration to tliose that need, and public indignation is ready 
to denounce injustice, while it takes instinctively the part of 
the wronged. In this way all the gentler virtues of pity and 
compassion and generous self-devotion are nurtured and 
strengthened. Society becomes actually a school for their 
development, and to show how successful it has been some- 
times in its training, it would only be necessary to mention a 
few of the familiar names which the civilized world has 
canonized for their self-forgetting consecration to the cause 
of humanity and the relief of human suffering. 

14. But while we speak of social sympathy we must not 
overlook the fact, that it is more readily extended to the 
virtuous than the vicious. It is difficult to enlist it on the 
side of the latter. Even those who are little govei'ned by 
moral principle themselves, will be backward to relieve those 
whose wrong-doing has challenged the hardships they suffer. 
There may be even a measure of satisfaction in seeing them 
forced to struggle with the consequences of their own vice 
and folly, or with calamities, not of their own procuring, 
which wear the aspect of just providential inflictions. On the 
other hand, the good man is sure of respect and sympathy 
from all that are good, and in the hour of calamity, he wiU 
not be left to neglect. Not merely those whom he has be- 
friended, but, in some instances, those who have merely known 
him by name and reputation, will rush to his rescue, and it 
may be that the hour of adversity may sm-prise him with the 
assurance of friendships that he had never known or imag- 
ined. 

We may thus perceive in how many and various ways, 
society, and social and civil organization, operate in the inter- 
est of virtue, and tend to confirm faith in the moral order of 
the world. In all its relations, hostile or friendly, to human 
chai-acter or energy, it is naturally, that is, according to its 
natural and necessary constitution, the ally of whatsoever is 
good, and the antagonist of whatsoever is vicious or socially 
injurious. 



YI. 



TIME AS A FACTOE IN" THE MOKAL SYSTEM. 

Having considered separately tlie relations of man, with 
his complex nature, both to the material world and to society, 
we reach a point where we are prepared to consider these, 
conjointly with a new element, by which their operation is 
modified, and by which also the vindication of right and the 
exposure and punishment of wrong are promoted. This new 
element, which we must by no means overlook, is — Time. 

Bishop Butler, in his ■" Analogy," draws a striking picture 
of the commanding position and superior advantages which, 
in a course of ages, would be attained by a government con- 
ducted on the strict principles of justice, and maintaining in 
its intercourse with other nations a reputation for incor- 
ruptible integrity. It is easy to see that its conduct and 
policy would inspire confidence and disarm resentment ; that 
it would give no occasion for the formation of hostile leagues 
combined to assault it, through apprehension of its ambition 
or unscrupulous designs ; that in every contest into which it 
might be forced, it would have the sympathy of all friends of 
justice ; that oppressed tribes or nations would naturally 
resort to it for protection, and that, by its own subjects, it 
would be regarded with a patriotic affection, increased and 
strengthened by its unsweiwing administration of exact justice. 
With each succeeding age, such a nation would increase in 
strength, even while stationary in numbers, and its whole 
history would illustrate the truth of the inherent strength of 
virtue. 

The very reverse of this would be the experience of a 
government conducted in disregard of the rights of its sub- 
jects, or its relative duties to other governments. It would 
provoke insurrections from within, and hostile combinations 
from without. If it indulged in unscrupulous violence, that 
violence would excite resentment, and invite indignant ret- 
ribution. The memory of its wrong would be cherished by 
its victims, who would await the opportunity of revenge. It 



116 VIBTUE GAINS AND VICE LOSES BY TIME. 

"would be accounted a dangerous neighbor — its very existence 
a standing menace to tbe existence of border states. Leagues 
against it would naturally be formed, and, at the same time, 
its own maladministration, conducted in disregard of the 
rights of its subjects or the common welfare, would rob it of 
the most reliable of all supports — the patriotic sympathy of 
its subjects. 

This contrast is instructive, but in tracing the several 
results to their causes, we are led to note not only — what 
has been already adverted to — the inherent weakness of 
every vicious compact, but the marked superiority and 
advantage which virtue reaps from the mere lapse of time, 
which allows existing tendencies or causes something like a 
legitimate development. The good and the ill of social life 
may encoimter one another, and in the immediate issue, the 
last may appear to triumph. But ere long it is found that 
there is something more than an immediate issue. Every 
day's, every hour's, delay is redressing the wrong and restor- 
ing the balance. The element of tiTne works diversely as it 
respects virtue and vice. Let these be represented by digits, 
and it adds its cyphers to them, but in the one case it suffixes, 
and in the other it prefixes them. 

1. Bishop Butler has compared the relative inferiority of 
virtue when confronted by the marshaled forces of evil, or 
gross physical strength, to that of reason when compelled to 
contend with wild beasts. Give reason time to devise plans 
and call in its resources, and it may defy the attacks of 
brutal rage. Taken unawares, by sudden assault, it is com- 
paratively powerless to resist, and becomes an easy prey. 
But it has within itself the means of supplying this defect. 
So, in a somewhat analogous way, it is with virtue. In many 
cases an innocent man, falsely accused, needs nothing at all 
but time for his vindication. Time elucidates the obscure, 
sets facts in a clearer light, softens the bitterness of prejudice 
or blind passion, allows causes to work out their results, or 
perhaps the really guilty to make a confession that exculpates 
the accused. 

On the other hand, vice loses by delay many of its seeming 
securities and advantages. It is subjected to a suspicious and 



EETKIBUTION SOMETmES SLOW. 117 

prying scrutiny. It risks tlie loss of tlie fidelity of accomplices. 
It is liable to exposure from most diverse and unexpected 
quarters. It is ever — from its own nature — ^making new foes. 
Its selfishness is not only forbidding new, but alienating old 
alliances. 

In this, indeed, we find the relative disadvantage of vice 
notably illustrated. All its leagues are necessarily temporary. 
They cannot endure. The chances are ten thousand to one 
that where several parties are united in one evil scheme, 
they cannot permanently harmonize their several selfish 
policies. Give them time, and they are almost sure to fall 
out. A virtuous association, like a well-constructed arch, 
will knit itself more closely by time and its own weight. 
But a vicious compact, in which each aspires selfishly to be 
uppermost, crushes out its own foundations, and is betrayed 
by its own supports. 

There can be no adequate explanation of this, except by 
adverting to those methods by which natural and social forces 
are made to array themselves finally on the side of truth and 
justice. It is time that is wanted to marshal them. They 
are often, simply — as we, perhaps, hastily judge — slow to act. 
The seed of retribution germinates tardily. It is like the 
seed that sleeps out the winter in its bed of frost, and gives 
no signs of life. Passion and prejudice must have time to 
subside. The excitement of the occasion must pass away, 
and give opportunity for a cool and calm reflection. Or it 
may be that the evidence of criminality, like a record written 
in sympathetic ink, only comes out after some peculiar ex- 
posure, before which months or years must intervene. 

Thus, we see the martyrs of one age patiently waiting for 
the next to justify them. Criminals, great and imposing, 
whom their own generation did not dare to judge, are all un- 
masked before the tribunal of one that succeeds. The false 
colors of the present fade out with time. The mortar in- 
scription to the memory of applauded wickedness, crumbles 
away, and leaves the granite record of truth finally exposed. 
Many a slander has been wiped away only when centuries 
have passed. 

It is equally obvious that in the procedures of civil justice, 



118 VICE KEYEALING ITS NATURE. 

time is necessary for perfecting its Work. Give the greatest 
possible promptitude and efficacy to tlie working of its 
macliinery, and yet it can only, witli the help of time, ac- 
complish the desired result. A mistaken national policy may 
be prosecuted till the public opinion that condemns it has 
time to form. An iniquity, like the slave-trade, may outlast 
the generation that first assailed it, bnt a succeeding one will 
strike it the fatal blow. 

It is thus that justice and virtue, aided l)y time, have 
vanquished the barbarisms, and cruelties, and intolerant 
theories and usages of earlier ages. The iceberg melts 
slowly as it approaches warmer latitudes, and it is time that 
drifts the icebergs of the past down to where they melt 
under the breath of the later centuries. 

2. Kor is this all. Vice reveals its own proper nature often- 
times, only after what seems a tedious delay. At first, it 
may have youth and beauty, strength and vigor, associated 
with it. It may be invested v/ith the charm of wit and 
cheerful spirits, and these may mask its nature, or hide its 
deformity. But time strips them off. When the sprightli- 
ness of youth has given place to the feebleness of age or of 
disease, and beauty has been succeeded by wrinkles, and 
gayety of spirit has been sobered by the reverses of life, or 
the weight of its multiplied burdens — then, at the very time 
when " the hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in 
the way of righteousness " — vice exhibits itseK as it is, in- 
herently repulsive, nakedly deformed and disgusting. Its 
borrowed charms are torn from it. The fascination of its 
earlier associations is lost forever. The varnish of assumed 
respectability lingers only as a transparent cheat, like the 
plaster that covers an ulcer, suggesting a hideousness which 
it scarcely conceals. Such is the operation of time upon 
vice and injustice, when possessed at the start of all worldly 
advantages. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that of virtue the reverse of 
all this is true. It is when all boiTowed or conventional 
grace has vanished, when beauty of form and feature is gone^ 
that the virtue of the good man shines forth with a grace and 
beauty peculiarly its own. Time, that gives the fruit its full, 



TENDENCIES, WITH TIME TO OPERATE. 119 

ripe development, and bestows on the waving harvest its 
golden hue, invests the upright character with peculiar 
channs, making its very exhibition its commendation, so 
that every aspect of it pronounces its eulogj on virtue 
itself. 

3. In calculating the effective value of the retributoiy tenden- 
cies and forces that we see constantly operative even now, 
time is a most important factor. Take it away altogether, and 
every vestige of retribution disappears. Continue it for a 
limited period — say for a score of years, or three-score years 
and ten — and as the period is prolonged, we witness a steady 
approximation toward exact justice. Some evil deeds are 
like seeds of a slow growth. They reach the matuiity of 
their harvest only when most of those who witnessed their 
planting have passed away. More than a single generation 
is necessary to form concerning them a competent and exact 
judgment. But let the score of years be multiplied ten or a 
hundred fold ; let vice have full opportunity to exhibit itself ; 
let virtue outlive the envy or prejudice or reproach that be- 
longed only to a peculiar occasion, or peculiar circumstances ; 
let the veteran in crime be compelled, through successive cen- 
turies, to confront at once the memories and the consequences 
of his evil deeds ; let the accumulating infamy of his baseness 
ever attend him till he becomes the loathing and scorn of all 
with whom he comes in contact ; let his associates be those 
who have known him through his whole career, and who have 
seen the pliant elements of moral character harden into fixed 
deformity ; and in such a case as this we should have data, 
such as we do not now possess, for estimating the retributory 
forces of the moral world. It is even appalling to consider 
what they must be in circumstances like these. Hidden wick- 
edness would be brought to light. Moral perversity would 
betray its essential discord with individual happiness and 
social welfare. AU the odium due to unprincipled selfishness 
would be paid to it with interest, till the facts of experience 
would transcend the fiction of " The Wandering Jew." We 
can readily suppose that in such a case existence would become 
a curse, and annihilation be coveted as a boon. 

i. But it is when we allow these tendencies, of which we 



120 EIPE EESULTS OF VICE. 

speak, an illimitable scope, so that every deed, everj evil 
thought, eveiy vile passion, shall work out its legitimate 
results, yet with no prospect of a termination, that we are 
forced to feel that we have, actually in existence, and opera- 
tive now, forces which need no more than time, to vindicate 
triumphantly the constitution of the moral world. Here the 
seed scarcely pushes up its germ to the light, and begins to 
betray its nature, before its further or full development is ar- 
rested by death or by social changes. But let it grow, and 
expand, and blossom, and mature its fruit, and who can doubt 
that under its deep shadow, blighted human hopes would so 
testify against it, as to visit it with full and merited reproba- 
tion. A moral nature, perverted and debased by long indulged 
sin, a memory stored up with all the elements that reflection 
can make effective for seK-reproach ; thoughts and fancies and 
imaginations that have all become steeped in vileness ; pas- 
sions that have run riot in reckless indulgence; affections 
that have been fixed on perishable objects — all these, combined 
with enfeebled and failing senses, to throw the soul back upon 
itself, may well suffice to make consciousness terrible, a kind 
of imperishable torture-chamber of the soul, from which there 
is no escape, and for which there is no alleviation. 

And yet to this conclusion are we inevitably brought when 
we introduce into our calculation of existing tendencies, the 
element of duration. That element belongs legitimately to 
the solution of the problem. The nature of many things can 
be fully known only through the indefinite delay that is neces- 
sary to their complete working. Let the retributory forces of 
the world, with which we are familiar, and the existence of 
which no man can dispute, be judged of in accordance with 
this rule, and there will be few who will call in question the 
actual constitution of the moral system, as committed to the 
side and support of vii'tue and justice. 



YII. 

MAJ>f's MOEAL NATURE. 

If all the considerations hitherto offered in proof of the 
existence of a moral system conld be set aside, there would 
still remain one which, properly weighed, would be decisive. 
This is the fact that man is constituted a moral agent. He is 
possessed of a moral nature, and by the laws of that nature 
he is actually subjected to moral discipline, and so subjected 
that it is evident that he was designed to be so. 

It may, indeed, be questioned whether conscience is a dis- 
tinct faculty, whether it may not be resolved into other facul- 
ties, or their combination ; but there can be no question whether 
there is that in the nature of man which answei'S to what is 
expressed by the term conscience. K we call it a faculty, it 
is a faculty which asserts for itself a rightful supremacy. The 
tone in which it speaks is authoritative. It allows of no 
appeal. Other faculties or qualities of the mind speak in an 
advisory or persuasive tone. This is imperative. Prudence 
suggests that it would be well to avoid this measure, or to adopt 
that. Sagacity urges that such or such an issue, in given cir- 
cumstances, is probable, and on this ground pleads for a policy 
accordant with the probability. Passion asserts preference, or 
resolute purpose ; but conscience, in the most direct manner, 
says, this must be done, or that must be avoided. It makes 
no allowance for fear or favor, for profit or loss. It is simply 
authoritative, and admits no superior or rival among all its 
kindred faculties. 

Perhaps the intuition of the poet, apprehending the facts 
of consciousness, throws more light on certain features of our 
spiritual being than the most profound investigations Of the 
metaphysician. Certainly the testimony which is borne by 
our great poets to the existence and power of conscience, is 
surprisingly uniform and emphatic. Young, in his " flight 
Thoughts," asks — 

^' Conscience, what art thou? Thou tremendous power, 
Who dost inhabit us without our leave ; 



122 SHAKESPEAEE. MILTOIJ'. 

And art within ourselves another self; 

A master-self, that loves to domineer, 

And treat the monarch frankly as the slave ; 

How dost thou light a torch to distant deeds, 

Make the past, present, and the future frown ! 

How ever and anon awakest the soul, 

As with a peal of thunder, to strange horrors 

In this long, restless dream, which idiots hug; 

Nay, wise men, flatter with the name of life ! " 

Shakespeare repeatedly gives us glimpses of conscience, 
both in its smiling and in its frowning aspects. He portrays 
it at one time as making " cowards of us all/' and again repre- 
sents one of his characters as saying, 

"I feel within me 
A peace above all earthly dignities — 
A still and quiet conscience." 

Milton, repeatedly alluding to the power of conscience, tells 
us, in his " Comus," 

" He that has Hght within his own dear breast, 
May sit in the centre and enjoy bright day; 
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, 
Benighted walks under the midday beam — 
Himself is his own dungeon," 

In his " Paradise Lost," one of the most terrible pictures is 
that of Satan, exclaiming " Me miserable ! " and plunged into 
despair, from deep to " lov/er deep," when he would escape 
from himself ; and what an apprehension of the power of 
conscience was required to trace these lines : 

"O, conscience, into what abyss of fears 
And horrors hast thou driven me ! Out of which 
I find no way ; from deep to deeper plunged ! " 

In some cases we are tempted to believe that, in depicting 
the terrors of a guilty conscience, the poet has simply photo- 
graphed the facts of his own experience. If such is the case, 
the lines of Byron are peculiarly impressive : 



NATUSAL SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 123 



"So do the dark in soul expire; 
Or live like scorpion girt by fire ; 
So writhes the mind remorse hath riven : 
Unfit for earth, undoom.ed for heaven, 
Darkness above, despair beneath. 
Around it flame, within it death." 

Gifford, in his "Juvenal," has simply reflected a thought 
that has poured its lurid illumination over the pages of some 
of the old classic tragedians : 

" Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign, 
Can match the fierce, unutterable pain 
He feels, who, night and day, devoid of rest, 
Carries his own accuser in his breast." 

l^ov has the importance of the invs^ard approval of con- 
science, as an element of peace and happiness, been over- 
looked. Pope teaches us how poor is all v^^orldly pomp or 
power to supply its absence, since 

"More true joy Marcellus exiled feels, 
Than Caesar, with a senate at his heels." 

The natural supremacy of conscience is sufiiciently indi- 
cated by human consciousness, as well as by such citations as 
these, which reflect with such vividness the facts of human 
experience. Each man, in spite of taste, or passion, or pre- 
judice, must confess that he is held in check by a power within 
him that asserts authority — a power with which his interests,, as 
he often, though falsely, interprets them, are at feud — and yet 
a power from which he can never gain more than a j^artial 
release. In some cases, indeed, he goes deliberately to work to 
silence or suppress it ; but, in the very act of doing so, he 
confesses how formidable it is, and how intolerant it is of the 
evil he loves. 

But, however he may for a time seem to succeed in this 
effort at moral suicide, his success is at best but transient. It 
is more apparent than real. Conscience may be habitually 
disregarded. It may suffer from that intoxication of the soul 



124 CO^rSCIENGE SHOULD RULE. 

whicli is produced by the deliriums of exciting pleasure, or 
the lethargies of sensual indulgence. But in any case, the 
most tririal incident may serve to rouse it to an unprecedented 
activity. So little can its secure repose be trusted, that its 
seeming sleep may prove one of its most alarming attitudes. 
To this Young refers, when he exclaims — 

"Ah, treacherous Conscience ! While she seems to sleep 
On rose and myrtle, lulled with syren song; 
While she seems nodding o'er her charge to drop 
On headlong appetite a slackened rein. 
And give us up to license unrecalled; 
See, from behind her secret stand. 
The sly informer minutes every fault, 
And her dread diary with horror fills. " 

If we regard the constitution of man as anything else than 
the work of chance — supposing the word to have any mean- 
ing — we must recognize the importance of the fact that the 
power of conscience, or — if we choose to call it so — the moral 
sense, is supreme. It may be temporarily overborne by pas- 
sion ; it may be studiously suppressed by methods devised in 
order to escape its sentence or its reproofs ; but that it may at 
any time resume its place and sway — that its temporary de- 
position may be succeeded by a terrible reactionary vigor of 
self-assertion — that it is the rightful sovereign of the entire 
conscious beings — that spiritual peace and the harmony of all 
the powers of the soul are conditioned on its ascendancy — 
that when its sovereign control is suspended, all goes wrong, 
and man becomes a brute in his lusts or a tiger in his rage ; — 
all this indicates a manifest design in that relation which has 
been constituted between conscience and the other faculties — 
a design subordinating the end and scope of these faculties to 
the conditions of a moral system, of which conscience is the 
exponent. 

Conceding to the conscience of man the proper place which 
it claims to hold as related to his whole conscious being, as 
well as its aims and interests, we are warranted to say that its 
existence is the proof of a moral system. Its. sphere is co- 
extensive with consciousness. Its control extends to all volun- 



now CONSCIENCE ASSERTS ITS POWEE. 125 

tary action. We may consider it under several aspects, in 
each of which it asserts its supremacy as authoritative in the 
moral sphere. 

1. In the first place, it forces upon the individual a sense 
of his responsibility. Whatever he does, or neglects to do, 
may be a subject of moral judgment. Conscience holds him 
fast under law, moral law, and if there were no civil statutes 
or courts, he would be none the less responsible. Conscience 
asserts a rule of duty, and impresses upon the soul a sense of 
its obligation. From this obligation there is no release. It is 
abiding. It is universal. It does not change with climate, 
nor waste away with years. From it, there is, and can be, 
no exemption. 

2. The sphere of conscience extends to a judgment of our 
relations to our fellow-men. They share with us the same 
moral natui-e. They hold us responsible for our deeds, and 
even our thoughts, just as we do them. On this fact, the 
whole structure of social order and civil government is based. 
The ultimate appeal, that reaches after a higher and more 
perfect justice than that embodied in the written statute, is to 
that equity in which, as its vital air, conscience lives and 
moves and has its being. In all our social relations, we are 
spontaneously and inevitably applying rules and tests derived 
from our moral nature. 

3. Conscience' asserts its power in connectipn with the fears 
and hopes, the aims and the efforts of man. It makes the 
good man bold, and the bad man timid. " The wicked* flee 
when no man pursueth ; but the righteous is bold as a lion." 
It is through conscience, that guilt is made to excite appre- 
hension. The concentration of attention and energy becomes 
sometimes impossible, through those inward rebukes which 
remind the transgressor of the real character of his acts, and 
fill him with anxiety not only for real, but imaginary dangers. 
He knows not in what direction he is secure, or rather, he 
knows that he is not secure in any. He is forced to feel that 
he stands alone, that he can have no allies upon whom he can 
rely, none who are not united to him solely by their selfish 
interests, that at any moment may come into collision with hia 
own. 



126 EETEIBUTIONS OF CONSCIENCE. 

But tlie reverse is true of the good man. Whether he has 
human or unseen allies, he is confident that he has them. 
He knows that he has the hearty sympathy of all that appre- 
ciate his aims. The approval of conscience is sometimes 
equivalent to the support of an armed host. It re-assures the 
spirit. It dispels timidity. It inspires to do and to dare all 
things to which duty calls. The suggestions of fear, the 
doubts of success, the whispers of apprehension, are all si- 
lenced by the convictions of an approving conscience. 

4. But conscience is not merely advisory. Its sphere is 
judicial and retributory. It is not with impunity that its 
rules can be transgressed. Unwritten, inaudible, unexpressed, 
they are recognized by the soul itseK, as supreme above all 
considerations of ease or interest or gain. Their violation is 
followed by seK-reproof, self-reproach, and, finally, the agony 
of remorse. Conscience, when in a state of merely ordinary 
activity, is a constant source of peace or disquietude. It is 
through its presence and operation that the thoughts of men 
are ever " accusing, or else excusing one another." But some- 
times it exhibits an excej^tional activity, a kind of spasmodic 
energy which bears down all opposition, and gives it a domi- 
neering and irresistible mastery over all the fears and hopes, 
the capacities and sensibilities of the soul. At such times it 
seems to transform a man, overpowering him with invisible 
terrors, palsying. his boldest resolutions, forcing him, in the 
face of his strongest passions, to surrender all the advantages 
of his crime, to expose his own shame, confess his own guilt, 
and even offer up, as a voluntary sacrifice, his own life. Its 
mandates carry with them a resistless authority. They are 
possessed for him of a moral omnipotence. Before them he 
shrinks back appalled and helpless. The great prizes of the 
world's ambitions count as nothing to him. He carries about 
with him a ceaseless accuser. He is tortured by restless fore- 
bodmgs. Let him go where he will, to the w^ilderness, to the 
solitary cave, to the deep darkness in search of a shelter from 
persecuting thoughts and accusing memories ; it is all in vain. 
There is no shelter, no place of refuge. He cannot escape 
his fears. He cannot silence the terrible whisper, heard only 
in his own soul, of self-accusation. His state of apprehension 



CONSCIENCE AND SOCIAL PENALTIES. 127 

is sucli tliat a rustling leaf, a strange foot-fall, an echo of his 
own words, fills him with affright. Though reason might 
assure him of safety, and he might know that no minister of 
human justice was on his track ; that not one of his fellow- 
beings suspected his guilt ; he could not feel secure ; and in 
repeated instances, the mere power of conscience has forced 
such an one to surrender himself into the hands of justice, to 
he executed upon his own confession. 

It was the knovdedge of such experience as this, undouht- 
edlj, that led some of the ancient poets to depict as they did, 
the retributions of Kemesis, or the vengeance of the Furies. 
They understood, well enough, that in the very nature of 
man there are those elements out of which self-accusation 
evokes spectres of guilt, the tortures of remorse, or that intol- 
erable curse of frenzied apprehension which drives its victim 
to suicide, in order to escape from himself. 

Such is the retribution which even on earth is sometimes 
meted out to the guilty by the power of conscience. It for- 
bids them sleep except in troubled dreams. It follows them 
behind granite walls, to the interior of palace or prison, to 
scenes of mirth and revel, through the street to the dwelling, 
from the dwelling to the grave. 

On the other hand, its benedictions are as beneficent as its 
curse is terrible. With an approving conscience, men have 
smiled at torture and death. They have sweetly reposed in 
dungeons, have borne exile without a murmur, have actually 
triumphed in the surrender of all that most men hold dearest 
on earth. Asking no rewards, they have acquiesced in the 
hardest lot, have faced the gravest dangers, have risked fame 
and fortmie, content to sink to a state of penmy or scorn, or 
an unknown grave, if only they could carry with them the 
peace of their own conscience. 

5. But the retributions of conscience are meted out to the 
guilty in the moral judgments of -mankind. Even though a 
man's own conscience be torpid or debauched, this is not 
the case with the consciences of all other men. Without any 
formal process, they are, in a sense, his judges. They weigh 
his -guilt ; they pronounce sentence, and to some extent, they 
execute sentence. They put upon him the brand of reprobar 



128 CX)NSCIENCE AND ETHICAL JUDGMENTS. • 

tion, of moral outlawiy. He must m.eet their contempt, their 
scorn, their averted looks, their alienated respect. This is 
often no light penalty. It may even prove crushing, if not 
fatal. Few men can endure it with equanimity. Some would 
flee from it to strange lands, where their iniquity is unknown. 

But the experience of the good man presents a marked con- 
trast. Beside the inward peace of an approving conscience, 
he is assured of the approval of his fellow-men. So far as 
conscience prevails with them, they will be his sympathizers, 
if not his eulogists. They recognize his worth. They regard 
him with reverence, gratitude and respect. His social rela- 
tions are made more pleasant and agreeable on the veiy gi'ound 
of a virtue which the moral sense of those around him con- 
strains them to recognize. This certainly is of the nature of 
reward. It is the legitimate result of good deeds in a society 
constituted of moral natures. 

6. It is to that element in man which is sometimes denomL 
nated conscience, and sometimes the moral sense, that we 
turn for the explanation of the fact that certain actions appear 
beautiful, while others are simply odious. In the daily ex- 
perience of life there are some deeds that we admire, and 
some that we reprobate, and this admiration or reprobation is 
shared by those around us. It is not in our power, while eon- 
science asserts its supremacy over our moral judgments, to 
determine capriciously in regard to our own actions, or those 
of our fellow-men. Some things inspire us with enthusiasm ; 
others fill us with disgust ; and we cannot, if we would, re- 
verse the impression of their character. That which is selfish, 
vicious or sordid, to no pm-pose challenges our admiration ; 
that which is pure, generous and virtuous, may be depreciated, 
but it cannot be despised. It is not our moral nature that 
invests these qualities with what is attractive or repulsive, but 
it recognizes, and must recognize the fact that they are so 
invested. 

If any one could have any doubt on this point, he would 
need only to turn to those characters which figure on the 
pages of history or of fiction. "We may find heroes of crime 
there, and they may challenge a sort of admiration. But on 
reflection we shall find that it is not the crime that excites ad- 



ETHICAL JUDGMENTS NOT CAPRICIOUS. 129 

miration, but the rare qualities- — tlie indomitable will, the sur- 
prising sagacity, the incredible endurance, the exhaustless 
energy — with which it is associated. If the epic poet seeks a 
hero, it is one who, if an outlaw, exhibits these qualities ; or 
higher and nobler qualities, if he ranks with the just and good. 
No one would think of making a Judas Iscariot or a Benedict 
Arnold the leading character in a work which was designed 
to appeal to the deepest and strongest sympathies, or the best 
and highest aspirations of the soul. A Dives in his purple 
and fine linen, and amid all the sumptuousness of his feasts, 
is no better than a human swine, and would rather paralyze 
the hand than inspire the soul of one who should attempt to 
draw his portrait. 

It is thus that vice bears about with it a brand like the 
mark set upon Cain's brow, a manifest seal of reprobation, 
that all the resources of genius and all the skill of art can 
never erase. But a good deed, shining out of the rubbish of 
the past, fixes the admiring gaze. It excites emulation. It 
kindles enthusiasm. Sometimes it has an inspiring power, 
lifting men, as it were, out of themselves, and making them 
forget all selfishness, all low and sordid aims. It need not be 
associated with rank or station. It may have nothing exter- 
nal to illustrate or commend it. And yet men, void of prin- 
ciple themselves, will unite to do it homage. They will even 
build monuments to its memory. They unite in conferring 
upon it a fame, compared with which the blazoned achieve- 
ments of mere strength or courage or animal energy are as 
dross to gold. 

All this indicates the extent to which, in certain directions, 
our moral nature asserts itself against mere j)assion or ca- 
pricious fancy. That, nature compels us to recognize things 
as they are, to see beauty in virtue and sordidness in vice, to 
acknowledge the inspiring and ennobling example of the one, 
and the repulsive loathsomeness of the other. All voluntary 
actions thus come under the notice of conscience. They are 
right or wrong, and as such are to be approved or con- 
demned. 

7. Thus the extended connections and relations of our moral 
nature spread themselves over the entire constitution of things 
9 



130 , MORAL ADAPTATION. 

to which man belongs. That constitution cannot be properly- 
understood without constant reference to them. It is adapted 
to them^ and they are adapted to it. The adjustment is mutual 
and all-pervading. It is in the light of such considerations as 
these, that we must intei-pret the present system of things. 
Of this system, the distinctive and most characteristic feature, 
is the moral constitution of man. This discriminates between 
good and evil. This makes every man responsible. This lies 
at the foundation of all government. This speaks authorita- 
tively, while it also, in a measure, executes its sentences, in- 
flicting penalty or bestowing reward. It makes man a sub- 
ject of moral government, whether that government be con- 
sidered as limited to the present state or not. It forces upon 
us those estimates of things and actions which command for 
virtue enthusiastic approval and admii-ation, and for vice hatred 
or scorn. 

Thus, if other evidences of the existence and operation of a 
moral system could be set aside, the fact of man's moral nature, 
as it comes before us, would be all-sufficient. It alone would 
reflect the intention of its author. It would show that all 
men sustain to one another moral relations, that we must all 
judge and be judged, that a sense of responsibility is insepar- 
able from our conscious activity, and that, whatever interpre- 
tation we may put upon the constitution of things to which 
we belong, it is framed and constructed as if with the evident 
design to produce the very results that must flow from a moral 
administration, so conducted, with a kind of deliberate for- 
bearance, as to allow human actions to develop their proper 
nature, and await the slow but sure visitation of merited retri- 
bution. But when this point is reached, where we find all 
voluntary action possessed of moral character, and actually 
judged as such by the human conscience ; when we see it sub- 
jected to retribution or visited by reward, independently of 
aU civil laws or processes ; when we see that no caprice of the 
individual or legislation of the state can set aside the laws of 
our moral nature, and that we must recognize these and their 
awards, whether we will or not ; — there remains no longer a 
question whether a moral system exists. It exists, and it is 
actually exhibited before us. We see it in operation, and in- 



OBJECTIONS. 131 

voluntarily confess tliat it is a necessity flovv^ing from tlie con- 
stitution of our nature. 



YIII. 

OBJECTIONS TO A MOKAL SYSTEM CONSIDEKED. 

The conviction felt by thoughtful minds that a moral system 
should exist, will scarcely be questioned. Only such a system 
meets the instinctive demand — springing out of our moral 
nature — that systematic provision should be made for reward- 
ing good and punishing evil. When we trace the career of 
men or nations, even if the story be merely Hctitious, there is 
a peculiar satisfaction, when we iind that the criminal is ex- 
posed and exeinplarily punished, and that innocence is vindi- 
cated and justified. 

Herein we discover the testimony which our own moral na- 
ture bears to the propriety of a moral system, and, we may 
add, to the necessity of it, if our own innate sense of justice 
is not to be violated by indiscriminate allotments. Our con- 
tinued experience of human life develops and strengthens this 
conviction of the propriety of, and this demand for, a moral 
system. We see, sometimes with a kind of shuddering ap- 
proval, illustrations of what we must admit to be a fit connec- 
tion between the act, or course of acts, and its sequel. Just 
as, when the moral follows the fable, we give to it our hearty 
assent, or when listening to the parable, we accept its applica- 
tion as the just and true solution of a moral problem ; so, our 
whole life long, we are coming in contact with the careers of 
other men, that, when followed out to the issue, have a kind 
of dramatic unity, and close with a fitting catastrophe. Yf hen 
Judas, smitten by despair and remorse, falls by his own hand — 
when Caesar, the triumphant usui^er, sinks under the blows 
of conspirators — when ITapoleon ends his troublous career of 
ambition, an exile on the lone rock of the ocean — when the 
last bigot of the Stuart dynasty in England flees from the 
lising indignation of an outraged people, to drag out his lin- 
gering years, 9n ignoble dependent on a foreign comi;; our 
iimate sense of justice, responding with ever increased and 



132 OBJECTIONS. 

strengthening conviction to the propriety of tlie result, is edu- 
cated to demand that the same principles of retribution shall 
be applied universally, in other words, that they be reduced 
to, or embodied in, a system that shall comprehend within its 
sweep the whole sphere of human activity. 

ITow it is true that this instinctive demand for a moral system 
— a demand which is provoked within us at eveiy step of expe- 
rience, by every page of history, by the sight of every act, 
whether of right or wrong, generosity or meanness — ^does not 
prove that the system actually exists. But it does prove that 
such a system harmonizes vdth the instincts of our being — 
that if it does not exist, there is something wanting to our 
moral satisfaction which nothing else can supply, and that, 
supposing it to exist, we have such a mutual adjustment be- 
tween our own moral nature and the sphere in which it ope- 
rates, as accords with the analogies of creative wisdom — ^resem- 
bling, in fact, the adaptation of the eye to the light, and 
light to the eye, the lungs to the air, and the air to the lungs. 
So that almost as one might say the eye implies the existence 
of light, or the lungs the existence of air, so this instinctive 
demand of our moral nature for a systematic provision for the 
administration of justice, seems to imply the existence of a 
moral system, to which our nature itself properly belongs, and 
in which alone it can fitly live and breathe. 

The facts that have been adduced in proof of a moral sys- 
tem cannot be set aside, and their cumulative force must be 
pronounced irresistible. But while the tendencies and forces 
and laws, which look to discriminating retribution of good 
and evil, will be admitted, it is asserted, by way of objection, 
that they are sometimes ineffective — ^that vice actually pros- 
pers — that virtue is subject to wrong and oppression — that a 
man's outward condition is no sure indication of his moral 
worth, and that society itseK is full of these anomalies, which 
suggest only an inadequate and partial provision for the exe- 
cution of justice, and leave one still in doubt whether this 
moral system, admitting it to exist, is not so cumbered with 
exceptions, as to detract very materially from tiie. conclusive- 
ness of the proofs of its existence. 



ANSWERS TO OBJECTIOIs'S. 133 

To all this, there are se-veral fitting replies. 

1. In the first place, the very instances upon which the ob- 
jection is based, may turn out in the end, when studied in all 
their bearings and results, to be rather the proofs of, than ex- 
ceptions to, the operation of a moral system. They are cited 
at just that point in their progress where the process is mani- 
festly incomplete. The wicked man is in the full enjoyment 
of impunity, rioting in his ill-gotten gains, while the good man 
is passing through the furnace of trial, and in each case the 
final issue is unknown. Let it become known — let it be pa- 
tiently awaited — and the objector may be silenced. As a fact 
of actual experience, we see the carefully guarded secret of 
wickedness strangely betrayed. The ill-gotten gain eats the 
flesh of the possessor, "as it were fire." Contempt and dis- 
grace follow — however tardily — on the steps of false honor, 
and the short, splendid triumph of vice is succeeded by a re- 
verse that derives a more impressive significance from the 
contrast. 

On the other hand, the good man comes forth from the f ur_ 
nace of affliction, where he was tempted to despond, or even 
despair, purified by the fires of trial, illustrious by endurance, 
and applauded even by those who once, with sceptical indif- 
ference, cited him as an objection to the conclusive proof of a 
moral system. In fact, no present immunity of evil, no pros, 
ent oppression of justice, can properly be considered by itself, 
isolated and independent. It is only a link in a chain, and 
must be judged as such. The methods of a surprising and un- 
anticipated retribution are practically numberless and inex- 
haustible. The wicked man may have obliterated the track of 
his guilt, and felt that he could defy pursuit. Justice may 
find itself bafiled in the vain prosecution of a lost clew, but 
sometimes, long after all pursuit has been abandoned, the 
course of events, like an underground river emerging to the 
light, floats up to full view the buried evidence, and men 
tremble with awe before a providential vindication of justice, 
that has suddenly brought out of the dark background of 
sceptical questionings of a moral system, the blazing testimony 
to the sleepless justice of God. 

2. The objector is met yet again by the reply that he has 



134 WHAT A MORAL SYSTEM MAT INCLUDE. 

no warrant to assnme that lie has before him, here and now, 
anything more than a fragment of the moral system. The 
presumption is that he has nothing more. He cannot assert 
— there is strong reason why he should not assert — ^that to ns 
the entire moral system is visible. He might make a strong 
case, if he could prove that the only possible reward or ret- 
ribution must take place on earth, but so far from being 
able to prove this, the presumption is all the other way. Of 
course, an objection that is based upon his assumption, falls 
to the ground. On the other hand, there is no need of 
jproving an extension of the moral system beyond the visible 
limits of our experience. H there is nothing inconsistent 
with the system in supposing it, we are at liberty to make 
the supposition, and in that case the force of the objection is 
lost. 

3. Still another reply may be made. A moral system is 
consistent with the possibility that other ends are to be gained 
by it, than an exact and immediate distribution of rewards 
and punishments. A moral system may include in itself a 
system, more or less complete, of moral government, and 
"omething else beside. It may be not only a hall of justice, 
but a school-room. It may be designed to develop moral 
character, as well as to mete out retribution to it. There is, 
as we shall see, the strongest presumption that this is the case. 
If so, it will necessarily modify the features of a moral sys- 
tem, and modify them in those very respects in which they 
will offer occasion for the objections that have been urged. 

For instance, the very idea of probation implies a qualified 
and temporary suspension of certain processes which might 
be supposed essential to the perfection of moral government. 
The immediate infliction of penalty would exclude the oppor- 
tunity to repent. Moreover, a man confronted with the 
certainty of unmediate punishment following swift upon 
transgression, could scarcely be said to be in a state of trial. 
He would obey — if he obeyed at all — through the influence 
of terror, rather than from the deliberate strength of his own 
convictions. To allow him freedom to act and shape his own 
destiny, and to do it in view of conflicting considerations and 
inducements which he must weigh for himself, there must be 



PHYSICAL COMBINED WITH MOSAL. 135 

an apparent suspension of the processes of justice, precisely; 
like vv^hat we witness in connection with this moral system, 
and of which the objector readily avails himseK. His objec- 
tion, therefore, is directed really not against the moral system 
itseK, as a system of moral government, but at what is allied 
with it, and qualifies it. He objects to what is pertinent and 
necessary to probation, and yet he cannot assert that the 
anomalies whicb he cites as objections to the moral system, 
could be dispensed with, without dispensing witii probation 
also. 

4. Again, it may be replied that in many, if not all, cases 
where vice seems to be favored or rewarded, it is not the vice, 
but the energy, the industry, the sagacity, or some other 
natural gift or advantage, which is connected with it. A 
man may prosper in spite of his vice, because he possesses 
and exercises those natural qualities which may be said to 
merit or assure success. The rewards of virtue, on the one 
hand, and of sagacity or energy on the other, are not the 
same. They may properly enough be allied, but they may 
also be dissociated, and virtue alone may be assured of its 
proper reward — inward peace and public respect — and yet be 
compelled to forego the rewards that belong to qualities 
which it does not itself possess. 

This distinction is noted by Pope, in his " Essay on Man." 
He exclaims : 

" See, Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just, 
See God-like Turenne prostrate in the dust; 
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife ; 
Was it their virtue, or contempt of life ? " 

And again : 

" But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed: 
What then? Is the reward of virtue bread? 
That vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil. 
The knave deserves it when he tills the soil; 
The knave deserves it when he tempts the main, 
Where folly fights for kings, or dives for gain. 
The good man may be weak, be indolent; 
Nor is his claim to plenty, but content." 



130 PHYSICAL AND MOEAX. 

The explanation of this is that the moral system is inter- 
penetrated by, and to some extent combined with, the natural 
system of rewards for natural, as distinguished from moral, 
qualities. The laws of each operate within the same sphere, 
and the result naturally appears confused, unless we carefully 
discriminate the operation of each. Yet, just as the natural 
system indisputably exists, notwithstanding the industrious 
are sometimes cheated of the rewards of their industry, and 
the indolent are made possibly the heirs of fortune ; notwith- 
standing that misfortune may be inflicted by the operation of 
physical laws in such a way as to deprive a man of his power 
to labor, or to rob him of the proper reward of his industry, 
so, in like manner, we say that when what may be called the 
natural system of rewards, with its laws, intrudes into the 
moral sphere, and confuses the results that follow the opera- 
tion of intermingling laws, it is no ground for denying the 
existence of a moral system. That system is to some extent 
interfered with, and yet its character as a system is not lost. 
If we would judge it fairly upon its merits, we should note 
the results of actions, not as they indicate natural capacity, 
but as they are virtuous or vicious, and by thus separating 
the moral from the physical sphere, we should see how point- 
less and feeble are the objections against it, derived from 
unequal earthly allotments, due not to moral qualities, but 
natural capacity. 



IX. 



THE BEING AND CIIAEACTEE OF THE AUTHOE OF THE 
MOEAL SYSTEM. 

If a moral system exists, has it an intelligent Author, a 
presiding Mind ? Surely, if the argument from design is 
valid anywhere, it is valid here. The relation of man to his 
own mental and moral constitution, to society, to nature, with 
its laws and forces, is such that vice is reprobated and pun- 
ished, and virtue favored and commended. The relation of 
man's moral nature to the constitution of things, in which it 



HAS THE MORAL SYSTEM AN ATJTHOK ? 137 

finds its fitting sphere, is evidently adjusted by a nice adapta- 
tion, tliat seems to imply foretlionglit and compreliensive 
design. Or, if we fall back upon tbe structure itself of man's 
mental and moral being, with its varied yet mutually adjusted 
faculties, adapting it to become the subject of moral govern- 
ment, our observation of it leads us to the same conclusion. 
There is an evident intention that man shall be made to feel 
that he is not at liberty to act capriciously, but must govern 
his com-se by such considerations as are suggested by the laws 
and conditions of a moral system, which sternly rebukes the 
evil, and emphatically commends the good. 

"WTiy should any man deny to this system an intelligent 
author ? It is the simplest solution of the problem ; the most 
natural inference from an impartial study of the subject. Is 
anything gained by the denial ? Are the apprehensions of 
conscious guilt relieved by seeing and recognizing no presid- 
ing mind directing the laws and forces, the existence of 
which it is constrained to acknowledge ? These laws and 
forces are ever visibly at work. Guilt cannot put itseK 
beyond their reach. There is no line of precautionary en- 
trenchment which they may not pass. In their operation, 
they are as stern and unbending as an iron will. In their 
reach, they are as comprehensive as Omnipresence itself. 
Human strength and skiU are as vain to resist or evade them, 
as chaff in the grasp of the whirlwind. They work out their 
end, often silently, but steadily, surely, and as irresistibly as 
the fiat of an Omnipotent Huler. They move on, passing 
and repassing one another — ^mysteriously, perhaps, to us — 
like the hands on the dial-plate, till the clock of Justice 
strikes the hour of retribution, and it is the well-studied and 
well-grounded confidence which they inspire, that teaches 
philosophy, little instructed by faith, to exclaim : 

" Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 
. The eternal years of God are hers." 

In any case, under the moral system as it is even now, we 
witness the most terrible retributions of guilt, enough cer- 
tainly, if we suppose it continued and extended on, so as to 



138 "nattjPvE of things" inadequate. 

ombrace tlie unseen future as well as the present, to inspire 
the gravest apprehension, to make the criminal feel that he 
breathes the air of retribution, and that all the elements of 
remorse and despairing anguish, which others have ex- 
perienced, are in store for him. He certainly gains nothing 
by the hypothetical transfer of the control of the laws and 
forces of a retributive moral system, from the hands of an 
infinitely wise and controlling Providence, to a mysterious 
something, a resistless energy which he cannot define, but 
which he calls, perhaps, chance, fate, or " the nature of things." 

Between this " nature of things," and a Supreme Mind, 
manifestly the choice lies. The moral system exists, and 
exists as it does, either by this " nature of things," or by the 
will and counsel of an intelligent author. Can we resolve it 
into the former ? Is thei^e anything in this nature of things 
that necessarily determines this moral system and man's rela- 
tion to it ? Is such an hypothesis tenable ? 

Plainly there is much which must be conceded to be neces- 
sary, and this necessity may be traced perhaps as well to the 
nature of things as to anything else. Tv/o and two make 
four, The three angles of a triangle are equal to two right 
angles. Such is the fact, and it cannot be otherwise. But 
now, from the nature of things^ it is assumed as a necessary 
result, that vice is attended by contempt, distrust, and other 
penalties or infelicities. Yet we canaot proceed far in tracing 
out the process by which the result is reached, before we come 
upon certain arrangements and conditions which cannot be 
predicated as necessary, on the ground of anything implied in 
the nature of things. The connection of a vicious disposition 
with a physical structure susceptible to the pain that follows 
vicious indulgence, is by no means necessary in such a sense 
that from the nature of things it could not be otherwise. The 
constitution of our moral nature, which fits us to be the sub- 
jects of a moral system, is by no means necessary in the same 
sense. There are elements that, for aught we can see, might 
have been omitted from our mental structure, and the omis- 
sion of which would have cancelled features indispensable to 
that moral system which we find existhig, and to which by 
virtue of our moral nature we belong. 



A MIND NECESSAEY. 139 

Leaving, therefore, as broad a margin for the occupancy 
and operation of the nature of things, as any one can plausibly 
assert, there is still a broad sphere where we must recognize 
the presence and working of an intelligent force. The moral 
system, as it is, could not have been constituted without 
the determination and adjustment of the elements of our 
moral nature,^ and the adaptation of these to the various con- 
ditions of our existence. They must have been adapted to 
our physical frame and our material surroundings, to our 
intellectual aptitudes and capacities, to our social condition 
and relations ; and to assume that there is anything in the 
7iatuTe of things which determines such adaptation to be 
necessary, is utterly groundless and unwarrantable. Obvious- 
ly, such an assumption has no shadow of support in fact, and 
to admit it would, in logical consistency, require us to proceed 
further, even to the gross absm-dity of asserting that all 
evidences of design in the universe, whether from a human 
or divine source, may be resolved into the operation of the 
nature of things. In such a case, we should, of course, deny 
the moral system to have an intelligent author, but we should 
also go much beyond this. We should logically annihilate 
the moral system itseK, and all responsibility with it. 

If we shrink from this absurd conclusion, we must admit 
that the moral system has an intelligent author and a presid- 
ing mind ; that it is constructed and constituted in accordance, 
indeed, with the nature of things ; yet with a variety and 
richness of adaptation which declare the character and purpose 
of the great Being with whom it originated. It is his work — ■ 
after all possible concessions to the nature of things — as much 
and as really as any structure of human art — in which the 
various quahties of the materials to be employed are predeter- 
mined — is the Vv^ork of man. To deny it to be his and credit 
it to the nature of things, would be as presumptuous and as 
groundless as to deny that any product of man's ingenuity 
was his, because the material he employed and its diverse 
properties might be ascribed to nature ; because the wood or 
metal could be wrought only in a certain way and in certain 
forms, or was subject to the law that determines the strength 
and durability of materials. 



140 JUSTICE OF GOD. 

If the moral system, then, constructed in accordance with the 
nature of things, is the work of an intelligent author, it will 
necessarily, when properly studied, reveal somewhat of his 
design, and it will serve to exhibit or illustrate his character. 
We may therefore investigate his character in his work, and 
see what attributes are involved in the design manifest in its 
origination, construction and administration. 

1. The most striking feature, perhaps, of the moral system 
which we have surveyed, is the favor which it extends to 
virtue, and the reprobation which it inflicts upon vice. This 
is indeed its distinctive, characteristic feature. It is framed 
mainly in the interest of justice. If it should be asserted that 
human happiness is the main object in view — an assertion con- 
fronted often with manifest failure to attain the object — it 
must still be admitted that this happiness is conditioned on 
conformity to virtuous obligation, and that what constitutes 
the most prominent index of the character of the system, is, 
its stern repression of wrong, and its subjection of human ac- 
tion to the terms of inexorable law. There is no happiness, 
properly, so called, except on these terms. This is the language 
of the moral system — the language of the author of that sys- 
tem. The one indispensable requisite is conformity to moral 
law. Is not this a plain indication of the justice of the 
author of this system ? 

2. But is not the system also one that indicates benevolence ? 
True, it has stern features. It emphasizes justice. But it 
does not therefore exclude benevolence. Benevolence rather, 
in its broad sense, includes justice. We find in the moral 
system indeed no ground for ascribing to its author that easy 
indifference or unconcern which would leave men without re- 
straint to do evil, or pass over their transgressions with impu- 
nity. Such an attribute would argue weakness and imperfec- 
tion, rather than strength or excellence. It might even prove 
itself practically malevolent, allowing license to vice in the 
pursuit of imagined pleasure, till the most terrible and tre- 
mendous penalties overwhelm it. True benevolence will aim 
at the greatest good of all. It will punish where punishment 
is necessary to this end. It will never dishonor or depreciate 
justice, or be indifferent to moral desert. 



BENEVOLENCE OF GOD. 141 

Sucli beneyolence is indicated in the moral system, and 
must be predicated of tlie author of that system.. It is no ar- 
gument, not even a presumption against it, that wickedness 
is sometimes overwhelmed by a terrible retribution. The ex- 
emplary chastisement may be interpreted as a necessary and 
even benevolent warning, contributing to the common, if not 
the individual's security. A hand thrust into the flame, feels 
the torture, and is at once withdrawn. The prompt admoni- 
tion of the pain is proof of benevolent design. If it were not 
for the torture, a vital organ of the body might be seriously 
injured, or even consumed, without the victim being aware of 
it. So men, knowing indeed the destructive nature of vice, 
might persist in it, even to a fatal result, the more readily, if 
the transgression did not bring with it its own torture, the 
agony of mental remorse or physical suffering. The torture 
affixed to vice as its penalty is not only in the interest of vir- 
tue, but of the welfare of all observers ; possibly, unless he 
has gone already too far, of the transgressor himself. 

The general well-being is certainly dependent upon the 
existence of a moral system. The disposition to promote that 
well-being on the part of the author of that system, is evidenced 
by its actual introduction and administration. He is ben evolent 
in the highest sense, when He holds out no false promise to 
happiness ; when He plainly conditions its attainments on con- 
formity to moral law. We may, therefore, on the ground of 
what this moral system implies, assert the goodness of its au- 
thor. The evidence from this source is independent of, and 
yet in harmony with, that which is derived from the benevo- 
lent provisions of the natural world. The inward peace and 
self-approval which follow the performance of a good deed 
that makes others happy, is an incontrovertible proof that the 
author of the moral system desires the welfare of those subject 
to it. It sets the seal of His own approval on an act which 
diffuses happiness. 

3. There is scarcely need of any elaborate exposition of the 
evidences which the moral system affords of the wisdom of its 
author. It is true, the illimitable extent of the system pre- 
cludes us from doing full justice to this attribute. But even 
the narrow field open to us, is sufficient for its vindication. 



142 . WISDOM 'OF OOD. 

The structure of our moral being, its adaptation to its ap- 
pointed sphere, the varied provisions by which the ultimate 
exposure of wickedness is secured, the wonderful connection 
established between sin and penalty, such that, in the absence 
of all exterior interference, crime is made to become its own 
punishment in the consciousness of the wrong-doer — all these, 
and countless other provisions, indicate a wisdom of design 
and arrangement, that may possibly be paralleled, but cannot 
be surpassed in the material frame, or the operations of natural 
as distinguished from moral law. 

Thus, with the moral system simply in view, we are war- 
ranted to assert unequivocally the justice, the benevolence and 
the wisdom of its author. These are the three leading attributes, 
which may be said to imply others kindred to them, and which 
constitute what is most essential in the divine character. But 
they are those in which Vv^e are most directly and personally 
interested. They are those, morever, which throw the clearest 
light on our interpretation of man's relations to God, his duty 
here, and his destiny hereafter. 



X. 



THE rUTIIRE LIFE. THE NEGATIVE AEGTIMENT. 

The argument of Bishop Butler on the Future Life is 
simply negative. It is conclusive against the objector, who 
finds the burden of proving a positive thrown upon himself ; 
but though it may silence his objections, it does not remove 
doubts. What was lacking in Butler's argument may be sup- 
plied from those results of the investigation of this moral 
system, which, by examining that system first, we are now 
prepared — as by his arrangement he was not — to use and 
apply. 

The negative argument starts with what may be termed 
the postulate — that whatever now exists, it may be presumed 
will continue to exist, unless some sufficient cause for its ceas- 
ing to be, can be shown. The soul exists, an individual con- 
sciousness. It has already passed through successive states 



BUTLEE ON THE FUTURE LIFE. 143 

and conditions, sometimes very distinct and varied, without 
losing its identity, and of the future experiences that await it, 
there is none, unless it be that which we term death, that can 
warrant the apprehension of its destruction. But of what 
death is, except in its formal aspects, we have no adequate 
knowledge, antecedent to experience. We only feel assured 
that it annihilates nothing — ^not a particle of matter, not an 
element of force. No such annihilation, by any power or 
change whatever, has taken place within the sphere of our 
knowledge in all time past. Forms of matter are dissolved, 
analyzed, etherealized, but never annihilated. The same is 
true of immaterial agents. The presumption is that all which 
constitutes that mysterious identity, the conscious being, will 
continue to exist, if death does not dissolve or disorganize it. 
Yet it can scarcely be argued that the change which death 
may be supposed to effect, can be greater than that which the 
soul has already undergone. The change in going out of the 
world can scarcely be greater than that of coming into it, and 
analogy itself might even suggest that death itseK was but 
a new birth into another and higher sphere, another advance 
step that will open a new or broader world to disenthralled and 
expanded powers. This presumption derives confirmation 
from the facts of experience. These go to show that the mind 
is more or less independent of the body ; that it uses it, in 
fact, simply as an instrument ; that it may continue to exist 
in the full integrity of its powers while it gives, through the 
body, no external demonstration of it ; that even when the 
physical frame is sinking in the weakness of dissolution, the 
soul, although in close connection and deepest sympathy with 
it, may give proof of undiminished and mature vigor, or even 
an unprecedented and triumphant energy. 

These facts, w^hile by no means conclusive of the point at 
issue, are not without weight. They are especially important, 
as determining the relations of the soal to the body. Evi- 
dently it is not the eye that sees, or the hand that wills to 
grasp, or the brain that thinks. These may be in certain con- 
ditions of existence necessary organs, but they are instrumen- 
tal, precisely as a telescope is, or a lever, or the organs of ar- 
ticulate speech. Yery considerable portions of the brain may 



144 THE NEGATIVE AEaUMENT. 

bo removed, without affecting the mental powers. In sleep 
the exercise of the voluntary muscles is completely suspended, 
and in a swoon the activity of the mind itself is suspended, 
and yet the integrity of the soul itseK remains unimpaired. 

All this indicates a great and marked, we may say radical, 
distinction between the faculties of the soul and the organs of 
the body. They are not only not identical, but to a consid- 
erable extent, notwithstanding their close conjunction, inde- 
pendent of each other. The change that dissolves the body 
with its organs, need not necessarily disturb the identity of 
the Spiritual being that had made it its instrument. 

Indeed, we are quite unqualified to define identity, or to 
show with what changes it may yet consist. Even continuous 
consciousness is no sufficient test. Radical changes of charac- 
ter vfill not destroy or even affect it. Much less will any 
physical change that takes place here and now prejudice it. 
If all the particles of matter of which the body is composed 
pass away, or change many times in the course of an ordinary 
life, the Spiritual being is not dependent on one or all or any 
portion of these particles. We can scarcely suppose that 
death itself, annihilating no element of matter or force, will 
subject spiritual identity to any more severe, or at least fatal, 
shock than it has experienced already. 

Bishop Butler seems to admit that the conclusiveness of his 
argument depends upon the indivisibility and indissolubility 
of consciousness. To prove this indivisibility, he falls back 
on the arguments of his eminent predecessor, Dr. Samuel 
Clarke, in his controversy with Dodwell, who maintained the 
"JSTatural Mortality of the Soul." Dr. Chalmers speaks 
lightly of Butler's reasoning, more lightly, we may presume, 
than he would have done if we could suppose him thoroughly 
familiar with the controversy between Dodwell and Clarke. 
But we may safely say, that as against Dodwell, who was 
driven to assume the dissolubility of the soul in support of 
his conclusions, Clarke has not only the best of the argument, 
but simply overwhelms his opponent. One must prove the 
divisibility of consciousness, the dissolubility of the soul, as 
Dodwell never did, before he is qualified to assert that death 
can be fatal to spiritual identity. So long as, in all our inves- 



THE FUTURE LIFE SUGGESTED. 145 

tigations of the relations of soul and body, we find tliem sus- 
taining respectively the characters of the originating and im- 
pelling power and the obedient instrument, we find grave 
difficulties in accepting the theory that thought or conscious- 
ness is the result or product of organization, and that with the 
disorganization of the body it must come to an end. 

Such, in substance, is Bishop Butlei-'s negative argument. 
It is burdened by the almost necessary collateral inference 
that brutes as well as men are immortal. It has perhaps some 
other drawbacks, but still its main and characteristic defect, is 
that it is simply negative. It silences the objector, but it 
does not satisfy the doubter. 

It is at this point that we revert to those characteristics of 
the moral system which indicate the design and character of 
its author. We have seen that He is at once just, and good, 
and wise. Of course, we infer that what he does, or what he 
fails or declines to do, will be in perfect accordance with these 
attributes. 

But before proceeding to this, which may be considered the 
positive argument for the future life, there are some other 
points which may here be considered. 

1. In the first place, the circumstances of our being ai'e 
such as to suggest naturally to us the thought of a life to 
come, as if to make it familiar, and habituate us to it. The 
present state of existence is limited and brief. We cannot 
contemplate it without noting its narrow boundaries. On 
either side of the three-score years and ten extends limitless 
duration, and the soul, gifted with the power of looking be- 
fore and after, cannot fail to have its own relation to the 
boundless future, as well as boundless past, suggested shai-ply 
and often by the bounded present. The frequent experience 
of human life renews the suggestion — the fading hues of 
health, the decaying strength, the crumbling frame, the dis- 
ease steadily encroaching on the vital powers, the prospective 
separation of those whom love or friendship has long united, 
the retrospect of many a death-broken association, and withal 
the countless symbols of decay and death that confront us 
with the changing seasons and the dying year. I*Tor is this all. 
We enter on courses of thought, on plans of study that reach 
10 



14:6 CAPACITIES FOB A BROADER SPHERE. 

on in their proper connections and relations beyond all earthly 
opportunities of application ; and in the enthnsiasm of the 
mental pursuits in which we indulge, we find our restless en- 
deavors chafing against the barriers that bound this present 
state, and impelhng us to ask whether any or what opportuni- 
ties may lie beyond. 

It is true that this, in itself considered, is no ^roof of a 
future life ; but the fact that such a life is constantly suggested 
by the conditions of our being, leads us to ask why it is so 
ordered if the present state is the soul's only sphere of effort 
or of hope % We cannot well harmonize it with the fitness 
of things, or the wisdom of a divine design, or, as Dr. Henry 
More has noted, with the veracity of God. 

2. Moreover, we have, and are conscious of, powers, which 
here are at best but partially developed, and perhaps are inca- 
pable of development, unless in a broadly expanded sphere. 
We have capacities for a knowledge that is here beyond our 
eager grasp ; for a happiness which eye hath not seen or ear 
heard ; for attainments of which we can here only dream ; 
for a conformity to, and a communion with, the Eternal 
Spirit, from which we are largely debarred by the limitations 
of our present sphere, with its material clogs and physical bar- 
riers ; and the very possession of such capacities as ours, seems 
to warrant us in regarding them as prophetic intimations of a 
future to which they shall be more fully and worthily adapted. 
In the Q^^-, or in the embryo before birth, there are rudiment- 
ary organs which are simply useless and answer no present end ; 
but they are prophetic of a sphere not yet realized, in which 
they shall have full play — a sphere in which the eye shall 
behold the light, and the lungs shall breathe the air, and the 
wing shall soar aloft, and each once rudimentary organ shall 
be expanded to the full capacity of its developed powers. 
And why may we not regard the slumbering capacities of the 
soul, liere developing, indeed, but never fully developed on 
earth, as prophecies of a future in which their largest efforts 
shall have full scope, and their longing aspirations attain full 
satisfaction. 

3. Nor is this all. The world is full of what we are accus- 
tomed to regard as emblems of immortality. They are ever 



EMBLEMS OF niMOETALITY. 147 

before our eyes, ever at our side, ever beneath our feet. We 
see them in the buried germ that wears out the winter in its 
frozen tomb, to wake with the new spring-time to bloom and 
vigor ; in the seed that is stored awaj sometimes for months, 
sometimes for years, sometimes for centuries, with a mysteri- 
ous hfe folded up m it, that may at any time — if it has been 
preserved from damaging exposure — give evidence that its 
long-suspended activity has no identity with death ; in the 
hidden root, covered up by the dying herbage and the winter's 
snows, and giving, for a long time, no signs of vital energy, 
but at length sending up the green blade or the vigorous 
stalk, and clothing these in bloom and beauty ; in the close- 
packed bud that forms itself beneath the very stalk of the 
dying leaf, and enfolds the immortalities of future leaves and 
blossoms, which it guards safe beneath winter's icy coating 
for the fruits and harvests of months to come ; in the worm 
that weaves about it, as with its dying energy, a kind of silken 
shroud, to emerge, after the long inaction, as it were, of a 
death-sleep, with all the gaudy beauty and the winged capacity 
that fit it for a sphere as strange to a worm, as an angel's 
sphere to us ; in the Anastasis, or, properly interpreted, the 
resurrection flower of Eastern deserts, swept, withered, and 
almost crisped by the consuming blasts, far away from its 
birth-place, and yet, at the touch of moisture in its new home, 
unfolding its shrivelled leaves, and shooting downward its 
withered roots, and putting on again all its lost beauty, till it 
triumphs in a transformation like a resurrection from the 
dead. 

Here we find beautiful symbols, striking analogies. Do 
they prove anything ? By the tests of logic, nothing at all 
concerning man's immortality. But his sensitiveness to their 
suggestions does prove something. It proves that his nature 
is such that he grasps at these analogies, that there is a native 
afiinity between it and a future immortal life. It is this 
which gives such point and force to the words of the poet — 

" Shall man be left forgotten in the dust, 

When fate, relenting, bids the flower revive ? 
Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust, 

Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live ? 



143 THE POSITIVE AKGUMENT. 

Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive 
With disappointment, penury and pain ? 

No ! heaven's eternal spring shall yet arrive, 
And man's majestic beauty bloom again, 
Safe through the ceaseless years of love's eternal reign. 



XL 



THE FUTUEE LIFE. THE POSITIVE AEGTJMENT. 

We have seen that the justice, goodness and wisdom of 
God, may be fairlv inferred from the moral system of which 
He is the author, and we are now prepared to ask, What is the 
bearing of these conceded attributes upon the great question 
of a future life ? 

We begin with what to some may appear the weakest point, 
the consideration of what may be inferred from the wisdom 
of God. 

1. We assume here only that the same wisdom which has 
constructed the moral system, has placed man under it with 
reference to some designed end. From this assumption, which 
none can deem unwarranted, we infer that the end must be 
such as will justify the wisdom of the means. For unless 
this be so we shall have an anomaly in the moral system which 
dishonors its author and impeaches His wisdom, and makes 
Him an object of universal distrust. 

Let us, then, for a moment — for argument's sake — assume 
that there is no future life for man — that the entire period of 
his conscious existence is included within the narrow span of 
three-score years and ten. Yet it is in him that all the schemes 
and provisions of this lower world center. He is the one ob- 
ject to which they all ultimately refer. Nature, with all her 
forces, with all her orders of inorganic, vegetable and animal 
existence, pays tribute to him, and spontaneously acknow- 
ledges him her rightful lord. Everything around him con- 
fesses its own subordination and his superiority. He speaks 
the word, and the answering echoes come back from the hith- 
erto unbroken solitudes of the tropics, or the poles. He puts 



WHAT IS EEQUIEED BY DIVINE- WISDOM. 149 

out Ms hand, grasping only tlie instruments that hand has 
wrought, and the forests fall before him, and cities rise in the 
wilderness. He intrudes into the sphere of immaterial forces, 
summons them from their latent beds, and makes them do his 
bidding. The lightnings come at his call, and say " here we 
are." And yet all past conquests seem only the earnest and 
pledge of greater. 

It is thus that his presence and agency gives a meaning to 
nature that it could never have had without him. It is for 
his comfort, his discipline, his development, his perfection, 
that nature opens her treasure-house, surrenders her secrets, 
presents her voluntary offerings. Take him away, and all 
that is left below is Hke the planetary system without its cen- 
tral sun, the ring without its jewel, the pedestal without its 
statue. 

And yet, if three-score years and ten constitute his entire 
existence, constraining him, as he sums them up, to say with 
the old patriarch, " few and evil have the days of the years of 
my life been ; " what fitting proportion does this result bear 
to the varied, countless, costly and elaborate processes by which 
it was brought about ? Would not any fitting symbol of it 
seem like a satirical exposure of infinite folly, a provision so 
disproportioned to the issue realized, as to 

" — resemble ocean into tempests tost, 
To waft a feather or to drown a fly." 

Should we not have before us something like a huge pyramid 
erected, so that on its apex there might be placed, soon to 
crumble to dust and insignificance, a Chinese toy, or a wither- 
ing flower ? Would there not be something like an elaborate 
drama, with a catastrophe almost trivial? Can we suppose 
such a scheme as a moral system — with all its multiplied pro- 
visions and adjuncts, including in it alb the lavish skill of crea- 
tioD, all the varied contrivances and adjustments which make 
the soul's relations to the body, to matter, to thcj daily expe- 
rience of life what they are — to end only in such a conclusion 
as warrants the sceptical contempt of those 

" — who hail thee man, the creature of a day, 
Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay; 



150 WHAT IS EEQTJIEED BY DIVINE GOODNESS. 

Frail as a leaf in autumn's yellow bower, 
Dust in the wind or dew ui>on the flower; 
A friendless slave, a child without a sire, 
Whose transient life and momentary fire 
Light to the grave his chance-created form, 
As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm ; 
And when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er. 
To night and silence sink forever more ? " 

We may, then, confidently assert that the wisdom of God, as 
evinced in the existence of a moral system, seems irreconcila- 
ble with such a scheme of human existence as bounds its 
hopes and prospects by the grave. 

2. The goodness of God, in like manner, may be made the 
basis of an argument for the future life. That goodness im- 
plies a kindly disposition to promote the highest well-being of 
the creature. It is inconsistent with the infliction of gratuit- 
ous or unnecessary suffering. It certainly cannot be credited 
with the design of placing man in a sphere where hope is ex- 
cited, only to be disappointed, and where the very capacities 
of the soul become necessarily the instruments of severer tor- 
ture. 

And yet must not all this be imputed to the divine good 
ness, if man is doomed inevitably to an existence bounded by 
this present life ? He is placed where the field of knowledge 
before him is absolutely limitless — where his three-score years 
and ten, as diligently employed as they were by a Newton, 
leaves him, like I^ewton, the conscious possessor of only a few 
pebbles which he has gathered on the shores of a broad ocean 
that invites his exploration — where all the education he can 
hope to attain is little more than mastering the alphabet and 
spelling out a few syllables from here and there a title-page 
of the countless volumes of the library of creation — where 
over his head there is a wonderful universe expanding into 
immensity — where, on either hand, there is an eternity which 
his prying thought essays in vain to explore — where the 
activity of his powers is fettered by the weakness and frailty 
of his physical frame — where free thought and soaring aspira- 
tions seem imprisoned, and, like the caged bird, are ever beat- 
ing their wings against the unyielding wires or bars — and 



WHAT IS EEQUIEED BY DIVINE JUSTICE, 151 

where, the moment he recognizes- his condition, he is con- 
strained to envy the brute that may perish without the con- 
sciousness of its misery through hmited existence and disap- 
pointed hope. And with what bitterness of spirit, must one 
that cherishes the instinctive aspirations toward an immortal 
destiny, which are rooted in his nature, sm-render all his high 
hopes, and sinking to the level of the brute or the clod that 
shall survive him, exclaim " to corruption, ' thou art my 
father,' and to the wonii, ' thou art my mother and my 
sister ! ' " 

There can be no question that man is so constituted by 
Him that made him, that his nature shrinks back instinctively 
from the thought of annihilation. That thought repels him. 
It is abhorrent to his sympathies, his sensibilities and his 
hopes. And yet he is gifted with powers that enable him to 
apprehend it in all its repulsiveness, nay, which sometimes 
seem to compel him, even against his will, to contemplate it 
with a torturing intentness of gaze and a shuddering horror. 
At such a moment, he might well be tempted to invoke as a 
boon, the extinction of those superior gifts which render him 
conscious of a superior misery, and to exclaim with a despair- 
ing sadness, in view of the gulf of nothingness into wliich at 
the very instant he may be about to plunge — 

" Cursed be the powers that but divine 
What we have lost beyond recall ; 
The intellectual plummet-line 

That sounds the depths to which we fall." 

To attempt to reconcile all this with infinite goodness in the 
constitution of man's moral nature, is simply preposterous- 
The admission of that goodness carries with it, by implication, 
the future life. 

3. And the same conclusion will follow from the admission 
of the divine justice. "We speak of this attribute with far less 
hesitation or distrust than of that of goodness. Above all things, 
the author of this moral sj^stem is, and must be, just. But 
how can infinite and perfect justice be reconciled with leaving 
the processes of retribution, begun in this life, forever sus- 
pended by death ? How can it possibly consist with such a 



152 THE TEESENT STATE A FEAGMEISTT. 

fragmentary and interrupted administration of a moral sys- 
tem as tlie order of this world wonld present, if \drtu8 and 
vice, crime and innocence, have nothing to fear or hope be- 
yond what they experience here and now ? "We discern laws 
and provisions evidently designed to operate in the vindica- 
tion of justice, hut they are of such a nature that sometimes 
vice enjoys, for a time, at least, manifest impunity, and the 
slow process of retribution has, perhaps, only just begun, when 
death snatches the criminal away from the scene. "We are 
constrained to ask. Is this the end ? Is the retributory pro- 
cess broken off forever ? 

Sometimes, in a cemetery, our eyes rest upon a broken shaft, 
standing among the varied monuments that affection has 
reared to the memory of the departed. Its significance strikes 
us at once. It bring-s up before us a life internipted lij a 
sudden stroke, broken off in the full vigor of manhood, and 
thus left, as it were, incomplete, the fragment, beautiful as far 
as it goes, but still only the fi-agment, of a perfect whole. Is 
there not a somewhat analogous impression made by the study 
of this present scheme of things, as related to the processes of 
perfect justice ? Is it not visibly a fragment, that requires a 
future retribution to supplement it and make it complete ? 
Is it not to our view, a kind of broken shaft, shooting up to a 
point where the mists of the future gather over it and around 
it, so that we cannot trace it farther ? And yet does not its 
visible incompleteness at least suggest that if those mists were 
but swept away, we might still discern it shooting upward in 
all the full proportions of its earlier promise, till upon its 
rounded summit there rests the vindicating light of an eternal 
and perfect justice ? 

Or, to present the subject in another phase, are not the 
foundations laid in the moral system now existing, for a struc- 
ture which can only be completed in a period which stretches 
on into the future life, and requires that life for its comple- 
tion ; and is not the justice of God a pledge that whatever is 
required in the interests of a perfect justice shall not finally 
be wanting ? All the objections that are urged against the 
moral system, as now conducted, derive their force from the 
unequal distribution of rewards and penalties which we wit- 



EELATIONS OF SOUL AND BODY, 153 

ness here, and even our own weak sense of justice seems to 
demand that somewhere and m some way these inequahties 
shall be provided for. Innocence, despairing of vindication 
at the hands of human justice, instinctively appeals to the 
great hereafter and to the future judge, and its faith that the 
Judge of the whole earth will do right, is based on the con- 
viction that a future life will afford the desired opportunity 
for a rectiiication of the inequalities of present justice. That 
future life is a necessary factor in the process which alone 
leads to the conclusion which saves oppressed innocence from 
final despair. 

On the ground then of the wisdom, the goodness, the jus- 
tice of God, we rest the positive argument for the future life. 
To its cumulative force, we add Bishop Butler's negative ar- 
gument, and the other considerations which have been ad- 
duced. With the preponderating probability of the validity 
of our conclusion, we accept the doctrine of a future life, and 
proceed to test its harmony with some of the recognized facts 
of human experience, thus securing for it a new confirm- 
ation. 

1. It accords vfith the view which we are necessitated to 
take of the mutual relations of soul and body. The body is 
the soul's instrument, supplying it the organs by which it can 
take cognizance of, and come in contact with the outer world. 
Upon this outer world it is largely dependent for the means 
of knowledge, the lessons of experience, the conditions of 
progress and development. It is in material foi-ms and rela- 
tions that the truths with which the soul is to deal, are to be 
sought. They answer to abstract truths, as the lines and 
angles of the diagram do to the principles they are employed 
to demonstrate. Only by means of these material forms and 
relations — so far as we can see — can the soul arrive at the ap- 
prehension of the spiritual truths most vital to its well-being, 
and yet all the lines and angles of the diagram would be in 
vain if the soul had not at command the means of seeing or 
coming in contact with them. The body provides these 
means. In its young vigor its senses are fresh and vivid, and 
drink in knowledge and fact, using the outer world as its 
board of diagrams, till the soul has obtained the data for its 



154 ANALOGY OF SOUL AND DEED. 

reflection, the basis for its practical conclusions, in a word, 
the means for its development and progress. 

But when this point is reached, the organs that have per- 
formed their office, and furnished their quota of contribution 
to the soul's resources of thought and reflection, begin to give 
way. They have served their pui-pose. They have laid what 
tribute they could gather from the material realm at the feet 
of their imperial sovereign. They have earned, as it were, 
their discharge. Together with the body, they feel the press- 
ure of decay, and sometimes, ere death finally sunders body 
and spirit, the last is so isolated, by the deaf ear and the blind 
eye, and the deadened feeling, that it is ready and waiting for 
its release, ripened and perfected for its own proper spiritual 
sphere. 

So with the living germ of the buried seed. It sends up 
its stalk, with its fresh leaves, and its multiplied folds that 
wrap themselves about the forming ear. But ere long the 
freshness fades. The leaves grow sere. The husks fall apart, 
or wither in the sun and rustle in the breeze. The change is 
in the direction of decay, and seems like the steady onward 
march of death. Why is this ? All the organs of the stalk 
have perfonned their office. They have earned their dis- 
charge. They did their duty well till it was no longer neces- 
sary — till, sheltered within the husks, there were formed the 
soft milky cells of the new ear, and then the hard kernel, that 
would remain impassive, though its husks deserted it — the 
kernel in which a m.ysterious life was folded up, that would 
endure when stalk and leaves have mingled with the trampled 
dust, and then become the germ of future, and still future 
harvests, till time should be no more. Is not this one of 
nature's parables, richly suggestive? Is not the body the 
stalk and leaves, and the soul the living kernel, to which it 
has ministered, and is not bodily decay a kind of prophecy of 
the future life of that germ, to whose development the body 
and its organs were simply subservient ? 

2. Again, the doctrine of a future life accords with the 
inferences naturally drawn from the processes of the soul's 
education. These processes conduct it from, and through, the 
material, to the spiritual. It is first the visible with which 



FEOM THE SEEN TO THE UNSEEN. 155 

we have to do, but tlie visible symbolizes or interprets to ns 
tlie invisible, until finally tlie soul, even now, may often be 
said to live far more in its own ideal world, than in the realm 
of sense. It is, from the first, subjected to an education that 
is emancipating it from bondage to sense, and educating it for 
the invisible. 

The earliest moral lessons of childhood come to it through 
material forms. Before it knows the meaning of words, it is 
gathering up the meaning of things. The process by which 
it rises to apprehend abstract thought, to grasp moral and 
spiritual truth, is by studying the relations of material forms 
to one another and to itself. It has to deal first with object 
lessons, palpably presented. It masters the alphabet, perhaps 
by block letters, and without knowing their ultimate use. 
It puts the letters together to make words, and the words to 
make sentences, without attaining as yet to much more than 
sensible images. But at length, blocks, spelling-books, gram- 
mars, are cast aside, for the mind has passed beyond the need 
of them, and is storing up the ideas and conceptions which 
they have prepared it to apprehend. 

In like manner, the student of geometry has his attention 
first directed to diagrams, with their Knes and angles. When 
he has mastered the problem, when he has attained the im- 
palpable mathematical truth he was in search of, his diagrams 
are laid aside, his lines and angles rubbed out. But the 
whole after-experience of his life keeps up its analogy with 
that of the child. The transactions of business, converse 
with men, contracts and schemes of gain — all dealing with 
material things — are ever evolving moral lessons. The trans- 
actions are past and forgotten. The actors in them vanish 
from view, but the principles which they served to illustrate, 
and the truths of which they were exponents, are indestructi- 
ble. They are treasured up in memory. They are incor- 
porated in character. They furnish the moral imagery of 
the soul, and constitute its imperishable intellectual or spirit- 
ual wealth. 

Thus it is that the material — when we study its significance 
in connection with human uses — is forever pointing away 
from the seen to the unseen, from itself to what it sym- 



150 CONGKUITIES OF HITMAN EXPEEIEXCE. 

bolizes or suggests — the immaterial and mortal. "With each 
new advance in its experience, the soul is creating for itself, 
hy the aid of visible forms, an invisible world, in which more 
and more, till the senses fail or the body crumbles, it lives 
and moves and has its being. What is the meaning of such 
a training as this ? "Why does the line of development and 
progress, that begins in sense, reach on to that which reason 
alone can apprehend ? Why, at the close of all the lessons 
read to us out of material forms, do we find ourselves eon- 
fronted with the invisible and eternal ? Is there not a 
manifest accord between all this, and the proper explanation 
of it, that the soul is created for a life above sense, and that 
this life awaits it, when it has been educated, by and through 
the material, for a spiritual sphere ? 

3. In like manner, it might be shown that the doctrine of 
a future life harmonizes with the necessities of civil justice, 
which requires the recognition of penalties beyond any that 
it can impose — with our social affections, that reluctantly sur- 
render the hope that reaches to a reunion after all earthly 
vicissitudes — with the demands of conscience, that stumbles 
at the suggestion that the author of nature can violate rules 
of justice that are the axioms of social duty and political 
science, and, among other things, with the only possible 
scheme of human existence, that invests it with dignity or 
entitles it to respect. Such accordance lends new confirma- 
tion to nature's evidence of a future life. 

Here we pause. Grant the existence of a moral system, 
with a presiding mind whose character it reflects, and a future 
life, the proper sequel to present probation, and there will 
still remain a broad field for investigation in the relations of 
natural to revealed rehgion. But it is enough for our pres- 
ent purpose to have shown that the great truths of the moral 
system have not appeared improbable to human reason ; that, 
however often denied, they have been as often reasserted, and 
that, in all time to come, it is to be presumed that they will 
never lack witnesses in their behalf. 



XII. 

PKOBATIOK. 

Admitting tlie probability of a future life, it reflects back 
upon the present something of its own importance. The 
term of present existence is, indeed, brief. Oftentimes, also, 
it can show for itself little more than trifling results and dis- 
appointed hopes. It is passed for the most part in obscurity. 
It sometimes becomes intolerably wretched, and seems a bur- 
den to be thrown off. But, like the pedestal of a statue half 
buried in the earth, it derives high importance from the fact 
that it is the pedestal of the soul's immortality. 

Is the present then a state of probation ? Is man here 
placed upon trial, so that his future experience w^ill depend 
upon, and be shaped by, his conduct here '( Is he placed in 
such circumstances that it is largely in his own power to de- 
termine whether he shall enter upon his future state to find 
it a scene of blessedness, or have it forced upon him as a 
sequel of just but severe retribution? This is the idea which 
we properly attach to probation. It proves a man. It puts 
him to the test. It subjects him to temptation, which may 
be yielded to, but should be resisted. 

That the present is a state of probation is rendered prob- 
able by the analogies of human experience. But before pro- 
ceeding to show that this is the case, it may be noted that the 
proof of it will carry with it by implication an argument, ad- 
ditional to the considerations already presented, for the future 
life. As will be teen, the two doctrines of probation and the 
future life support one another. As the system to which we 
belong is constituted, we cannot conceive of the future con- 
sciousness, independent of, or unmodified by, the present ; 
while on the other hand, if probation conducts to certain 
definite results, these results become insignificant and of no 
account, without such use of them as is possible only on the 
condition of a life beyond the present. In other words, the 
tedious processes of present trial must have some end in view, 
and what can that end be within the limits of probation itself ? 

1. But for the present assuming, on the ground of what 

(157) 



158 THE PEESENT AS BELATED TO THE FUTURE. 

has already been advanced, that a future life is probable, in 
what relation must the present stand to it ? It must be its 
introduction. It must give shape to it. It develops con- 
sciousness. It stores the mind with images and ideas. It cre- 
ates, as it were, that ideal world in which the soul lives, and 
moves, and has its being. It surrounds it with the associa- 
tions that form its tastes, and mold its opinions, and deter- 
mine its aims. It assigns it the tasks that develop its ener- 
gies, or provides it the indulgences that dissipate them. It 
forms those habits which cleave to the soul as a part of its 
being. It confirms those features of character which exhibit 
their firmest texture and most rigid lines as death draws on. 

^N^ow, all this cannot take place here and now, without lay- 
ing the basis and shaping the prospects of that existence which 
succeeds the present. Here we have the title-page and preface 
to which the future record must correspond. The thoughts, 
w^ords, and deeds of the present cast their shadow, or reflect 
their light, upon all that is to follow. This is, indeed, inevit- 
able. It results from the very constitution of the soul and 
the laws of consciousness. 

This, then, is probation. It follows from the very relation 
of the present to the future, which cannot but be determined 
by it. 

2. A strong confirmatory presumption of this may be de- 
rived from what would otherwise appear anomalous and inex- 
plicable in the Moral System. Moral system is a broader 
term than moral government. The latter implies an exact 
administration of rewards and penalties for human conduct, 
on the principles of strict justice, with only such delay as is 
necessary to judicial process. But in the actual system of 
things, as it has come under our eye, we have seen mysterious 
delays, opportunities for repentance, apparent though temper 
rary triumphs of wrong, virtue persecuted and sorely tried. 
Here is something which may and does co-exist with moral 
government, but it modifies it by the introduction of foreign 
and apparently incongruous elements. If we assume that 
probation, for wise and suflicient reasons, is combined with 
moral government, the incongruity disappears. The anomaly 
is no longer inexplicable. 



PENALTY DELAYED. 159 

That this combination is actually made, may be proved 
from the facts of experience. Under a strictly administered 
moral government, excluding what is so obviously anomalous, 
probation would be an impossibility. If retribution always 
followed swiftly upon the evil deed,* if the prize of virtue, 
ever kept in view, was at once bestowed, man's condition 
would be reduced almost to that of mechanism. There would 
be simply enforced obedience. All other motives would be 
overshadowed and dwarfed by those of terror. Confronted 
ever by the majesty of justice v/ith its armed sword, the soul 
would lack those conditions of experience in which alone it 
can be educated to strength of endurance, to patient, hopeful 
endeavor, and reliance upon the invisible forces of truth and 
justice. 

But the actual Moral System is more than this. It is modi- 
fied so as to allow the necessary elements of probation to 
come in. While all its forces and tendencies may be discovered, 
on close examination, to be ultimately on the side of justice, 
their operation is often retarded or concealed. The subject of 
government is also subject to trial. He is ever plied by op- 
posing and conflicting motives, till one side or the other gains 
the ascendency. If he falls by transgression, the opportunity 
is frequently given him to recover himself. If, persistent in 
virtue, he endures persecution, his very trials and afflictions 
are made to develop new energies of will or a new grace of 
character. Thus, with the assumption that the present is a 
probationary state, the Moral System no longer stands in 
need of that vindication that would otherwise be requisite, 
and what appeared anomalous is seen to be in harmony 
with it. 

3. But the fact that we have around us precisely those ele- 
ments which constitute the conditions of probation, has, inde- 
pendent of its place in connection with the Moral System, a 

* " Were punislaraent to follow close upon the heels of transgression, and the 
difference between good and bad made obvious to every eye, it must totally put 
a stop to offense ; duty would become instinct, and rectitude an object of sense. 
So we should have no use for habits of virtue or exercises of reason ; which seem 
growing powers within us, destined to greater services than we can perform with 
them in those gloomy tabernacles and clumsy bodies we inhabit." — T acker'' h 
Light of Natn,re, I. 631. 



160 PROBATION AS A FACT. 

significance and force of its own. Men are actually put upon 
trial in this present life, and tliis trial, in its highest degree, 
is moral. Our present existence is pervaded by the element 
of probation. Our daily experiences are rife with analogies 
of a moral probation. Men come into being gifted with pow- 
ers to be developed, and developed by trial. It is for them 
to say what they will make of life. All the tyranny of cir- 
cumstances, and of necessities which they cannot master, 
does not preclude a measure of freedom which renders them 
largely responsible for their own acts, their own habits, their 
own success, or failure in life. 

There is no evading the issue which is thrust upon them. 
They must fit themselves for their tasks. There must be 
attention, patience, toil, discipline of the powers and facul- 
ties, in every sphere of elfort, if failure is to be avoided and 
success assured. Childhood and youth are a probation for an 
honored or dishonored, an, useful or an useless manhood. Be- 
fore it can appreciate its task, the child has its task assigned 
it. It must study and apply itself, and on that application 
vast results will depend. It must resist temptations to pas- 
sionate indulgence, to untruth, to dishonesty, or the alterna- 
tive is a character that excites distrust, and makes after life 
torture or tragedy. 

Throughout every department of human activity, this pro- 
bation is going on. It is not a matter of choice. Every art, 
every profession, every industrial pursuit, must be laboriously 
mastered, and on the patience and thoroughness with which 
it is mastered, success or failure, honor or shame, happiness 
or misery, depend. Before any one can be allowed to accept 
of an important trust, he must have given proof of his fit- 
ness by a probation. Before he can command confidence, he 
must have endured trial. Even what the world calls success 
— however incorrectly sometimes — has its stem conditions, 
and these are of the nature of probation. 

Thus, to a very large extent, each one is made the arbiter 
of his worldly destiny. It is for himself to say what he will 
be, and for what sphere he will be fitted. By energy, sagac- 
ity, and perseverance, he can acquire new powers, or vastly 
expand faculties which he already possesses. He can open 



EESIILTS IN THE PEESENT STATE. 161 

his way to new, higher, and enlarged spheres. Upon this 
capacity, the whole theory of education is based. We are 
made familiar with its laws, till they pass as axioms. Thus 
the idea of probation confronts us everywhere. It is pressed 
.upon our attention continually. From childhood onwai'd, it 
is ever becoming more distinct. 

4. But the manifold analogies of probation in common ex- 
perience, prepare us to understand and appreciate that higher 
moral probation which is ever going onward in connection 
with each human life. Wherever questions of right or wrong 
are involved, and a choice is to be made, the soul is put upon 
trial. Wherever it is tempted to evil, whether by prospects 
of pleasure, or gain, or applause, the responsibility to deter- 
mine its own course is thrown upon it, and it must be met. 
The inevitable issue is sometimes too vast for calculation or 
description. A mistake, through ignorance, or heedlessness, 
or regard for a present and transient satisfaction, often has 
far-reaching consequences. The whole after life is clouded 
by a single dark deed of youth. A course of weak indulgence 
in any one of many forms of vice, is followed by disease, 
lingering torture, premature decay, self-reproach, or the 
scorn and contempt of the world. And yet at the time of 
crisis, in the hour of sharpest temptation, there was no audi- 
ble warning. The inexperienced eye discerned no cloud, be- 
tokening the approaching tornado, on the distant horizon. 
Months and years passed by, and it seemed as though there 
was, and had been, no trial, no abused probation. Only expe- 
rience revealed the sad mistake. 

So, where temptations to evil are resisted, there is proba- 
tion, but probation endured triumphantly and utilized. Often 
the trial is severe. At the time, it may seem likely to cost 
more than can ever be repaid. But the results — confirmed 
habits of integrity, disciplined virtues, inward peace, charac- 
ter rich in all noble traits — show that there is a close and 
necessary connection between severe probation, well endured, 
and the highest rewards, even on earth, of which the mind 
can conceive. 

We find, therefore, that just as childhood, in its relations 
to manhood, is probationary, so the whole of the present, as 
11 



162 IS PKOBATION AIMLESS ? 

related to future existence, appears to be probationary also. 
We might, indeed, anticipate this from what we know of the 
general scheme of things to which we belong, in Avhich we 
expect to find substantial harmony and consistent analogies. 
If the present existence is not in keeping as probationary 
with this scheme of things, it is an insoluble problem, an 
inexplicable anomaly. We see a principle pervading the 
whole scheme, from the earliest moment, and in every de- 
]3artment, up to a certain point, and that most important and 
momentous, to which, indeed, all else is subordinate. We see 
men familiarized v/ith the idea of probation ; we see it im- 
pressed upon them pei^etually ; we see them actually forced 
to accept it in every secular sphere, and yet when it comes to 
the most serious religious application, unless life is a proba- 
tion, it is to be abandoned and rejected. 

5. Such a conclusion is m the highest degree improbable. 
ISTay, it is in conflict with everything within, and up to the 
limits of our experience. In our ignorance of the future, we 
can still see that even on earth the moral results of life, con- 
sidered as a probation, outweigh all others, and that in them, 
all that is good or evil, blissful or miserable, is involved. 
These results are registered m the development or modifica- 
tion of the moral nature. They constitute the soul's insepara- 
ble property — what it must carry with it to the grave, and 
beyond. They are seen to be unspeakably precious, or sim- 
ply despicable. To the man that has well-nigh completed his 
earthly career, all his material acquisitions must appear of 
small account. Fame is an empty sound. Honors are an 
idle show. Wealth is the merest dross, which skeleton fingers 
can no longer hold. The spirit's frame and character, capa- 
bilities, sensibilities, and habits, these are all in all. There 
has been going forward all through the years of life, a process 
by which this result is reached. What is this process but 
that of probation ? 

6. And has this process been going forward without a 
definite and well-considered end in view ? Have there been 
varieties of acquisition, all manifestly subordinate to the edu- 
cation, discipline, and perfection of the spiritual nature, and 
yet, when this nature has reached the development which the 



IS DEATH THE LIMIT OF PEOBATION ? 163 

experience of life lias given it, is this the end ? Is there noth- 
ing beyond? Manifestly, a preparation has been made for 
something yet to come. Bnt without a fntiire life, what can 
remain ? And, granting a future life, how can it but receive 
its impress for good or evil, for weal or woe, from the expe- 
riences of the present ? 

7. But here the objection meets us — why may we not con- 
ceive the entire future existence to be a probation like the 
present? Why should we draw a distinction between two 
parts of the same consciousness, the one earlier, and the other 
subsequent ? May not probation extend throughout the soul's 
entire conscious existence, here and hereafter ? To a certain 
limited extent, reasoning simply from the light of nature, we 
may admit that this is possible. But only to an extent ex- 
ceedingly limited. The fact is, that in thousands of instances, 
long before death, probation is practically at an end. The 
great work of life for good or evil has been accomplished. 
Character has been molded ; and change, to any material ex- 
tent, is hopeless. Trial has well-nigh accomplished its com- 
plete Avork. The righteous will be righteous still, however 
assailed by temptation, and the filthy, filthy still, however 
plied with motives, and admonitions, and appeals to reform. 
The earliest period is that in which the processes of probation 
are most rapid and effective. In a few years they have done 
their work, and it is a work practically beyond recall. 

8. But why, then, is death made the normal limit of pro- 
bation, when probation may virtually terminate before it, or 
when the same consciousness is supposed to continue beyond 
it ? The answer is, that death effects necessarily a marked 
change in the condition and relations of the soul, and a 
change which has a special bearing upon the question of a 
continued probation. As to the future life, we have no 
knowledge how far the soul shall sustain relations to material 
things ; whether its " spiritual body," ii such there be, shall 
have material elements, and be subjected to material laws; 
but, however this may be, a great change in certain relations 
essential to present probation, comes with death. In the pres- 
ent life, the soul is indebted to its union with the body for 
certain important elements of moral discipline. Through this 



164 WHY IS MAN EST A STATE OF PROBATION? 

union, it is subjected to the necessity of exercising prudence 
and f orethouglit. It is forced to consider how its condition 
will be affected by the indulgence or restraint of its passions. 
It has the means, also, of diverting itself from gloomy 
thoughts, of evading any direct confronting of its prospective 
destiny, while, to the last, through the opportunities secured 
through the bodily senses, the hope of repentance and reform 
still survives. But Avith the dissolution of the body, all this 
comes to an end. Probation, so far as its elements are sup- 
plied by material relations, ceases. Henceforth the soul is 
thrown upon itself. The prospect of spiritual change or 
modification, that had before been steadily diminishing, now 
vanishes almost, if not quite altogether. 

From the several considerations that have been presented, 
can it be seriously disputed, whether the present is, indeed, a 
state of probation for a future life ? 

9. At this point the question may pertinently be ashed, 
why is man placed in a state of probation ? Why is he not 
so constituted by original creation, as to enter at once upon 
the spiritual and final sphere of perfect purity and perfect 
happiness ? 

In respect to this it may be said that, whatever the answer 
that may be given, it does not change or cancel the fact of 
Probation, in which we are most deeply and personally con- 
cerned. It is with the fact that we have to deal, rather than 
with the reasons for the fact. These reasons — some of them, 
at least — may be, and doubtless are, beyond the reach of our 
present faculties. Our probation may have connections with 
other worlds, or other parts of the divine administration, of 
which we know nothing, and yet these connections, if once 
understood, might contribute greatly to explain it. 

But leaving uninvestigated what lies beyond or above the 
sphere of our present powers, we can see obvious reasons 
why man should be placed in a state of probation. If there 
is a future sphere which he is to occupy, and for which he 
needs to be prepared, the preparation must be previously 
acquired, and it might naturally be supposed to require pecu- 
liar conditions ; in other words, a state of probation. This 
state is necessaiy in order to acquire the requisite experience, 



VIRTUE NOT CEEATED, 165 

tastes, and habits. It will scarcely be said that these might 
have been created with the soul itself. Holy beings might 
doubtless be created, but their holiness would not be the holi- 
ness that has been wrought out and perfected through trial — 
the hohness that is fitted to do its work, and struggle through 
adverse influences to final triumph. The virtue that has been 
wrought out through probation, is that which is fortified and 
strengthened by memories and experiences of the past ; by 
the consciousness of successful endurance ; by the practiced 
and ready mastery of the resources at its command. Here 
are elements that from the nature of the case, cannot be cre- 
ated. The facts of memory must be realities. On these ex- 
perience must be based, and without them it is itself a delu- 
sion, which can no more be created a reality than falsehood 
can be made truth by the fiat of Omnipotence. Only through 
probation can that holiness or virtue be attained, which seems 
to possess an intrinsic and effective superiority over every- 
thing that is merely connate, born, or created with us. 

10. Again, probation, when successfully endured, gives 
strength to character and fiiTaness to virtue. It expands and 
develops the moral nature, knits together and compacts its 
energies, and fits it for responsible position and enlarged use- 
fulness. We are familiar with its operation in the experiences 
of common life. The pilot that will grasp the helm with a 
firm hand and carry the v^essel through the storm safe into 
port, is the one who has learned by hard experience to shun 
the rocks and buffet the blast. The man who can stand firm 
and self-reliant in the shock of public calamity, or under the 
pressure of fearful responsibility, is the one who has already 
learned to bear his own burdens, and to shrink from no issue 
to which duty may challenge. 

It is in virtue of their antecedent probation that these men 
are what they are. Probation develops the latent powers, 
disciplines, and educates, and perfects them. And, in like 
manner, it is that probation operates upon the moral and 
spiritual nature. 

11. Again, if the future is a social state, the security of its 
peace and happiness will be dependent largely on the mutual 
confidence of those that share it. They must know one an- 



166 OTHER REASONS FOE PKOBATIOK. 

other, and so know others as to be assured of tlieir firm loy- 
alty to truth and duty. But how can the elementary basis of 
such confidence be possible, unless those who are called upon 
to exercise mutual confidence, have the evidence that there 
has been a probation, successfully endured, a probation which 
has evinced unspotted integrity and unswerving loyalty to 
truth ? The conditions of future blessedness in a social state 
seem to require absolutely an antecedent probation. 

There are other reasons which might be adduced, if neces- 
sary, to vindicate the wisdom of making the present state one 
of probation. If only through its union with the body, the 
soul can come in contact with the moral truths that are 
evolved out of material relations and connections, it is diffi- 
cult to see how this is possible without constituting some- 
thing of the nature of probation. 'Nor could responsibilty be 
brought home to the soul, unless the burden of foreseeing 
and providing for itself were thrown upon it, and it were 
made to feel that its destiny was largely in its own hands. 
No other conceivable state of things in which man could be 
placed here, seems to address him in tones and language so 
adapted to his nature, as probation. It summons him to self- 
consciousness ; to the recognition of his exposure through 
temptation ; to duty ; to effort ; to all the compliances with 
virtue and the demands of self-denial which his own con- 
science enforces, or his future and final blessedness implies. 



XIII. 

SEVERITY OF PRESENT TRIAL. 

TiiE severity of the trial to which vast numbers of the hu- 
man race are subjected, very properly demands our attention 
in connection with the subject of probation. Why it is made 
thus severe is an inquiry to which perhaps no fully satisfactory 
answer can be given. But when it is urged against a moral 
system proceeding from a beneficent author, it must be met. 



PEKVEESION .OF THE OEIGESTAL PLAJS^. 167 

Properly, however, we have to do with the fact, rather than 
the reasons for it. The fact mnst be admitted. The trial to 
which the integrity and moral capacities of men are subjected, 
is often greater than they can — or at least, actually do — sustain. 
The result is, the defeat of the great end for which probation 
is supposed to be instituted. Multitudes are found too weak, 
or too morally debilitated, to endure the stress of temptation 
to which they are subjected. They yield to it, and become 
moral wrecks. 

Indeed, in some cases, there can hardly be said to be such a 
thing as probation. The result is apparently predetermined, 
by natural constitution, by early associations, by circumstances 
over which the victims of them have comparatively slight con- 
trol. Some, from their very birth, seem fatally doomed. 
Their first breath is drawn in a poisoned atmosphere, and- they 
are made the slaves of vice, before they know the nature of 
their bondage. Every step they take carries them deeper into 
that abyss of vile habits and depraved indulgence from which, 
except by some almost miraculous intei-position, they have no 
hope of escape. The tragic close of their earthly career, with 
its foreshadowings of a fearful hereafter, is united to its de- 
praved original, by what seem mdissoluble links. Why is 
such a state of things, under the name of probation, per- 
mitted ? 

1. To this it may be answered, in the first place, that this 
extreme severity of trial does not necessarily pertain to the 
original scheme of probation. It has been engrafted on it by 
human perversity. The social depravity which so intensifies 
it, is a gratuitous and not a necessary element. Take out of 
the world all the evil influences that flow from corrupting 
association, from vile example, from the contagious license of 
bad men ; in a word, remove from probation just what human 
wickedness, in violation of the laws of the moral system, has 
introduced hito it, and who does not see how different an as- 
pect it would present, how its harshest features would disap- 
pear, how its seemingly cruel severity would vanish. "We 
cannot make the Author of the moral system responsible for 
what has been introduced into it, in spite of His warnings and 
threatenings. 



168 HOW TKIAL IS AGGKAVATED. 

2. The simple fact that the severity of trial is often greatly 
aggravated by parental crime or neglect — a fact which is in- 
disputable — when viewed in its various bearings, conducts us 
to certain important conclusions. Eesulting from the constitu- 
tion of things, it interprets that constitution. It shows how 
original iniquity may bequeath its curse. It admonishes the 
parent, through his affections, to beware lest by his own sin, 
he visit others with exposure to trial too severe to be endured. 
It suggests the power of that aggregate social mfluence, made 
up, so to speak, of individual depravities, which is practically 
irresistible, but which is simply the perversion of energies for 
good, and v/hich would be found such in the right and proper 
use of social relations. Let these be what all confess that they 
ought to be, and probation loses that terrific aspect which it 
sometimes wears. The prospect of it becomes rather assuring 
than desperate. Place a youth at schoolor college among a 
certain class of associates, and he may be more secure against 
the formation of dissipated habits, than within the circle of his 
own home. Temptation is shorn of its sudden, overmastering 
power, and probation is tempered to a point where it scarcely 
excites a fear or apprehension of the result. 

If, then, we may suppose — and we have a right to the 
theory for purposes of explanation, so long as it cannot be dis- 
proved — that through perverted social influences, probation 
has been aggravated — that this perversion is due to the volun- 
tary transgressions of men for which they are distinctly re- 
sponsible — that uniform, upright action on the part of one 
entire generation would be the almost assured salvation of the 
next — that the very force of transmitted influence, now so 
powerful to curse, might have been equally pov/erful to bless, 
that if all had heeded the admonitions of reason and con- 
science, those powers of the soul which are legitimately su- 
preme and authoritative within it, would have had universal 
prevalence — so that what now renders probation harsh, would 
have contributed to lighten it in a high degree — if we are at 
liberty to suppose all this, which seems, however, to be estab- 
lished on clear evidence, no fault can be imputed to the Author 
of the constitution of things that probation is so severe. The re- 
sult is due to the fact that the constitution of thino^s has been 



SOCIAL COKETJPTIOS-. 169 

perverted bj tlie debasement of man's moral natiu-e, a debase- 
ment voluntarily incurred, and for wliieb voluntary action, 
cumulating its force for evil through, successive generations, 
must be held primarily responsible. 

3. Thus there is evidence, as Bishop Butler has remarked, 
that man is a degenerate being. He is not now what he was 
as originally created. He has in his make, moral elements 
that are rightfully sovereign, but they have been forced to 
give way to passion, and wherever the degeneracy began, at 
the first, the tenth, or the hundredth link in the chain — though 
its universality would lead us to impute it to the first — the 
result would necessarily answer to what we witness in actual 
experience. 

The mischief, so far as the severity of probation is con- 
cerned, is two-fold. The victim of temptation may be morally 
debilitated by transmitted traits or tendencies, and at the same 
time, he may be confronted by an array of influences and asso- 
ciations that intensify temptation, and arm it v/ith fearful 
power. But all this serves not as a ground for impeaching 
the justice, goodness, or wisdom of the Author of that consti- 
tution of things under v/hich we exist, but rather for exposing 
that heedlessness, which, in contempt of the law of transmitted 
tendencies or sensibilities, ventures to introduce into the moral 
system, new elements at once of aggravated trial and conse- 
quent woe. It is not for man to arraign the Avisdom of the 
conditions of probation to which he is subjected, but rather to 
correct the mistakes of the past, and lighten the burden which 
must otherwise fall upon those who follow him. 

4. Again, this severity, by being allowed, is calculated to 
impress upon the individual his personal responsibility for 
social corruption. He sees that by contributing to it, by ac- 
quiescing in it, or by making feeble or no eiiort to remove it, 
he is really an accomplice in the guilt that multiplies its 
victims. If this conviction were allowed to produce its legiti- 
mate effect, it would prove a most salutary warning ; would 
tend to put under arrest those many activities for evil which 
are rooted in social vice. 

5. Moreover, it may be asserted that there is no absolute 
necessity that the power of temptation should prevail. The 



1^0 EESULTS OF SEVERE PEOBATIOI«r. 

conscience of the transgressor rebukes him for his base sur- 
render to its influence. He feels and acknowledges the obli- 
gation to resist and endure, even while he violates it, and 
though others may justify him, he condemns himself. 

6. To this it may be added that in some instances at least, 
those whose condition under trial seemed the hardest and 
most desperate, have been recovered, and have triumphed in 
the end. This shows what is possible under a moral system 
like ours, not left without extraordinary instrumentalities, to 
rescue the exposed, and restore the lost. It forbids us, barely 
on the ground of severity of probation, to despair of any. 

1. But again, experience attests that, as a general rule, the 
excellence of the results of probation, will be proportioned — 
up to a certain point — to its intensity. If a man's virtue is 
not overcome by temptation, the confirmation and strength of 
it in the issue, will be proportioned to the severity of the 
temptation. If he has resisted again and again the bribes of 
pleasure ; if he has stood firm in his integrity when that in- 
tegrity was assailed by all the threats or allurements of power 
or gain ; if he has unwaveringly adhered to his convictions, 
when those convictions were made the subject of scoff and 
ridicule, his real worth comes forth out of the furnace of trial, 
like gold " seven times purified." When the struggle is over, 
and the triumph achieved, he looks back ■exultant and thank- 
ful for what he was called to pass through, nor would he con- 
sent that one feather's weight should have been abated from 
his burden, or one blow less have been required to win the 
victor's pi'ize. Having run the greatest risks, he acquiesces 
in the goodness and wisdom by which they were permitted, if 
not ordered. 

8. It is the severity of probation to which we owe the great 
achievements that have lighted up the dim memories or 
dark panorama of past ages. Their struggles and endurance 
have been heroic, and it is from the background of their hard- 
ship, their almost desperate wrestlings with difficulty and 
danger, that the triumph of good men shines forth with its in- 
spiring record. By persevering fidelity to their convictions, they 
transformed reproach into honor, and won the applause of men 
not prone to sympathize or admire. There is nothing which so 



SEVERE TRIAL AND DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 171 

enkindles in lis a lofty and generous enthusiasm for excel- 
lence, as the spectacle of their heroism and its reward, and 
the broad desert tracts of histoiy, impoverished bj the ravages 
of almost universal selfishness, grow rich once more when 
sprinkled over with these diamond fields that shine with the 
illuminating examples of the good, the true and the brave. 

9. But it may be asked, how can the severity of actual pro- 
bation, so great as to result in the ruin of multitudes, be made 
to consist with divine benevolence? Remitting to another 
chapter a more comprehensive answer to this and similar ob- 
jections, we may yet reply here that it is, first of all, incum- 
bent upon those who bring this objection, to be sure that they 
have correct conceptions of divine benevolence. Mere good 
nature is not benevolence. 'No more is weak indulgence, or 
indifference to moral distinctions. It is not true benevolence 
that would grant every wish, and avert all that is contrary to 
the most common ideals of what constitutes happiness. It is 
better for youth to be disciplined, than left without, any check 
or restraint against which the propensities may chafe. True 
benevolence would not shrink from imposing that discipline. 
Moreover, benevolence, allied with omniscience, would take 
into view the ultimate and most enduring blessedness. If 
that can be reached only by trial, it will impose trial. If that 
requires that the nature of wrong-doing be exposed and re- 
buked by its legitimate results, it will bring about that ex- 
posure. If it implies a comprehensive and general regard to 
universal well-being, it will never sacrifice the whole to a part, 
the community to the individual. It will not suffer the latter 
to escape through pity, while allowing his impunity to 
seduce others with the vain hope of escaping themselves. 

But the benevolence which some would impute to God, as 
that with which present probation is inconsistent, must be 
considered rather a weakness and a defect. It is irresolute, 
too weak to enforce justice, too weak to infiict penalty. It 
cannot sustain government. It cannot crush rebellion. It 
cannot protect the whole at the expense of the guilty. With 
such a benevolence, probation, even of the weakest kind, is 
indeed inconsistent ; but with such benevolence on the throne, 
there might as well be no throne. It would be itself — as re- 



172 ACTUAL RESULTS OF PEOBATION. 

lated to the universal welfare — weakness, ineffieiency, and 
even injustice. 

10. But objections to the reason of a fact do not change the 
fact. That at least, Vv^itli all its significance, still abides. 
Probation, within our narrow sphere of observation, is some- 
times fearfully severe. It begins in light or even trivial 
things. It proceeds unnoted. It is characterized by falls and 
mistakes that produce perhaps no immediately calamitous re- 
sult. But in the end Ave see it assume the most sad and tragic 
phase. ' The veteran gambler cursing himself for his folly, 
and expiring in an atmosphere of crime and pollution — the 
drunkard driven on by the tyrannous force of his vile habits to 
that point where fatal delirium closes upon him the door of 
hope — the victim of debauchery parading before the world all 
that is odious in bloated features and forms of suffering or 
disease for which medical art knows no remedy — the miserly 
being whose habitual selfishness has alienated his last friend, 
and whose profession of repentance would be accounted the 
new crime of hypocrisy — these men, and scores or even 
thousands of others, illustrate a fact almost too notorious to 
need illustration — that there is a point even on earth, beyond 
which the attempt to arrest the results of a perverted proba- 
tion, is perfectly vain. The penalty is seen to be a final one. 
Repentance cannot recall the past. Regrets cannot arrest the 
retributory process. Excuses and apologies find no accept- 
ance. Retribution, stern and pitiless, steadily marches on, 
and crushes the victim of sin, like a worm beneath its heel. 

11. On the other hand, a well-spent j)robation secures re- 
wards even on earth, which are, in a sense, infinite — so far do 
they surpass any assignable standard of human conception, so 
far do they transcend any material or sensual enjoyment. 

And all this comes within the bounds of three-score years 
and ten. If this be so, and if it consists with the actual 
justice of God, who can say when the results of a probation, 
perverted on earth, can ever find an end 1 If the soul con- 
tinues to exist, it continues with its old being, its old habits, its 
confirmed tastes. If it made itself once an outcast, self -excluded 
from hfe and hope, when and how is its exile to terminate ? 
How is a disease that takes possession of the soul itself, to be 



EETEIBDTION. 173 

met and remedied ? There is little liglit on this dark point 
iji human analogies. Probation in its results, looks to a 
blessedness that is changeless, or to a wretchedness that can 
know no relief. 



XIY. 



E E T K I B U T I O ISr , 



Admitting the force of those considerations which lead us 
to conclude that the present state of existence is one of pro- 
bation, it naturally follows that the future, as the appropriate 
sequel of probation, will be one of retribution. Indeed, in 
our study of the Moral System we discerned those evidences 
of a disposition on the part of its author to see justice done, 
virtue rewarded and vice punished, which seemed clearly to 
warrant the inference, that the unequal allotments of the 
present will be rectified hereafter. We discerned what cre- 
ated a strong presumption that perfect and exact justice shall 
triumph in the end, and that it is intended that it shall tri- 
umph. But this is possible only as the future is made a state 
of retribution. 

1. But, though we may be at liberty, we are not com-pelled 
to suppose in this case, the introduction of any new or un- 
precedented methods for securing the result. There are laws 
and forces now at work, which need only to be released from 
the restrictions which impede their full operation, or hold 
their tendencies in check, to secure a complete and exact retri- 
bution for the' deeds of this life. We are not warranted, 
indeed, in saying that there will not be devised and applied 
something beside these, some positive retributory element 
that will more summarily effect the end in view-. 

But leaving this, as a matter upon which reason can urge 
nothing more than suggestions, we are led to consider what 
machinery of distributive justice, now at work, must here- 
after — if left free to act — ^render the future life one of retri- 
bution. 



174 PRESENT MACHINERY FOE EETEIBUTION. 

2. And as to this machineiy of distributive justice, now at 
work, we have seen that it pervades and largely constitutes, 
the entire Moral System. The tendencies of things even 
now, are to an exact retribution. There are some special pro- 
visions in the constitution of man's complex being, indicative 
of retributory design. The passions and volitions of the soul 
not merely disturb its own repose, but derange the order of 
the physical frame. Bodily suffering and disease are the 
result of moral transgression. We can see no necessity in the 
nature of the case that it should be so. But so it is, and this 
fact must be ascribed to the Author of man's constitution. 
In like manner the hereditary curse of transgression operates 
in such a way as to show that the principle of retribution is 
indissolnbly involved in the established order of things. The 
iniquity of the parent is, as a matter of fact, visited upon his 
children. There is a penalty of his transgression which is 
not inflicted sometimes until he has passed away. It is in 
some sense a posthumous retribution, whether he is tortured 
by the foreboding of it, or not. Thus a machinery of retri- 
bution is inwoven with the structure of man's being. Pen- 
alty reaches him — whether inflicted by his own perversity, 
by the resentments of those he has wronged, or by civil jus- 
tice — through the connection of his soul with its physical 
frame. Here we have plain intimations of design, harmon- 
izing with other intimations in the moral and social sphere. 

From the moment an offence is committed, the forces, whose 
proper scope is to visit it with its just penalty, begin to oper- 
ate. The conscience of the transgressor protests and rebukes. 
The angry elements of social provocation, of indignation, or 
contempt, or retaliation, begin to gather. Distrust is pro- 
duced, or even abhorrence, sundering the transgressor from 
the sphere of social confidence and sympathy, and leaving 
him outlawed or proscribed, to depend as he may, on the 
poor resources of what has been purchased by his wrong. 
Even if civil justice does not interfere, and social resentments 
are not awakened, the moral nature seems to take upon itseK 
the administration of penalty, and sometimes we are made to 
feel that a man of selfish schemes and worldly success, exhibits 
in the height of success, those evidences of restlessness, appre- 



PENALTY SURE AT LAST. 175 

hcnsion, self-reproacli, or possibly self -contempt, wliicli make 
Mm supremely wretched amid all Iiis wealth and honors. 
His wretchedness may be written legibly npon his features. 
Or, if the offence is secret, the course of things is such as 
to tend to bring it to light. Sometimes conscience, unless its 
power has been deadened by a long course of wrong-doing, 
will not allow the guilty man to keep his own secret. His 
looks will betray it. He will excite suspicion by his excessive 
precaution to keep it safe. Sometimes he will mutter it aloud 
in his dreams. Sometimes it will become such an incubus 
upon his consciousness, that he will be forced to disburden 
himseK of it even by voluntary confession. 

3. But if he is able to guard against self-betrayal, time will 
ever be threatenmg to bring it to light. H he had accom- 
plices, their diverse interests may impel them to sell out the 
guilty secret, or turn State's evidence. The consequences of 
the crime may be gradually revealing themselves, and, like a 
track of blood, indicating the locality, or motives, or peculiar 
circumstances with which its commission is to be associated. 
Some tell-tale instrument or memorial of the crime may, 
even after long delay, be discovered, and give new emphasis 
to the old adage — which demands a broad interpretation, and 
is endorsed by popular experience and acceptation — that 
" murder will out." 

Indeed, the modes in which secret crime is brought to 
light, are practically infinite. If that crime is a mystery, the 
very fact that it is so, challenges human curiosity to expose 
it, and a thousand eyes watch for, and a thousand hands are 
ready to grasp, the clue of discovery. The spark of suspicion 
is blown to a blaze of exposure. Somewhere, there is an 
unexplained fact, a missmg weapon, an unaccountable absence, 
a suspicious flush of m.oney, a stain of blood. It may be that 
after the lapse even of years, the current of evidence that has 
been flowing like an underground river, suddenly breaks out 
in full volume to the light. It is thus that time itself turns 
against the culprit, and to the last hour of life tortures him 
with apprehension of the exposure that may come at any 
moment. 

4. 'Nov is this all. The course of things even now tends 



176 PKESENT TENDENCIES CONSmERED. 

not only to the detection, but the punishment of crime. In 
innumerable instances, the good man fails of his reward, and 
the bad man evades penalty, because the natural tendencies 
of things are arrested by what is evidently disturbing and 
anomalous in the Moral System. The good man's aims or 
deeds are misunderstood or misrepresented, and he is robbed 
— not of self-approval, which is inseparable from an upright 
conscience — but of the praise and honor, or public reward 
which his conduct merits. So the wicked man is sheltered 
by his own plausible apology ; or by an accidental relation- 
ship or compact with men in power ; or by the interests of a 
party or society which he has served, and brought under obli- 
gation to himself. 

But all such interferences with the natural course of things 
are manifestly temporary, and cannot permanently be main- 
tained. Sooner or later, they must come to an end, and the 
supremacy of those tendencies which favor justice, will — if 
time is allowed them to operate — assert itself. If we could 
suppose the lives of the good and bad continued on here 
hidefhiitely, without the introduction of any new forces or 
arrangements other than what would be thus implied, we 
yet might feel confident that the exceptions to distributive 
justice which now occur, and attract attention, would be 
vastly diminished, if they did not disappear altogether. As 
has already been remarked, if a career of seventy years were 
extended to ten times that number, it would be next to im- 
possible that the accumulating forces of retribution should not 
overtake it. If, in the course of a few score years, the moral 
nature of the transgressor, by the perverting influences of 
wrong-doing, becomes such as to be a torture and burden to 
him, and if in that period the indignation and contempt, or 
vengeance which his fraud, or violence, or inhumanity have 
provoked, begins to recoil with terrible and crushing weight 
upon himself, what would be the result when these scores 
were changed to hundreds or thousands, and the hatefulness 
of inveterate depravity, stripped of all the decorations or pal- 
liations of its hideousness, which the charms of youth or the 
enterprise of manhood had thrown about it, stood forth, in its 
naked deformity, isolated from all social sympathy, and in its 



WHAT TENDENCIES WILL CONTINUE HEEEAETEK. 177 

hardened perversity, proof against all the kindly essays that 
might be made for its reform ! Indeed, we are not surprised 
that, even on earth, guilt sometimes sesks relief in suicide, 
shrinking from the desperate effort to hear up under the op- 
pressive consciousness of its own shame or difficulties, even 
for the near term of natural life as constituted now. 

5. It will thus be seen that a simple extension of probation 
would go far to ensure retribution. Life often seems to ter- 
minate, like a premature season, before the harvest of virtue 
or vice is fully ripe. A few days more in one case, a few 
years more in the other, might reveal results which would 
indicate what the matured harvest must be. Frequently, be- 
fore goodness can attain to the majestic beauty of its normal 
development, and before wickedness can mature to its shriv- 
eled hideousness and present itseK in its true aspect to the 
world, the process of probation, having reached its practical 
conclusion, is cut short, and men see, only in the bud, as it 
were, the foresliadowing of what by its exhibition might 
seem the blessedness of a holy, or the hideousness of an in- 
fernal sphere. 

6. There can he no reason why this result should not mani- 
fest itself in a future life, unless with the dissolution of the 
bodily frame, the action of certain laws by which it is brought 
about is suspended. The assumption that things can go on 
permanently there as they do here, so that justice may be 
evaded, or inequalities and mistakes remain uncorrected, is 
gratuitous. Even here, there would be, with time, a steady 
approximation to justice, until finally the retribution was 
complete. But in the future life, we have no warrant to sup- 
pose that the action of any laws bearing upon this result will 
be suspended, or cease to act, with the exception of those 
which make the body, through its sensibilities, the victim of 
sin. We must assume that all others will remain as they are. 
Reason will still discriminate. Memory will retain her treas- 
ures. Conscience will judge, and approve or condemn. All 
the elements of mental experience will abide unchanged, and 
if, as we have reason to believe, the future state shall be social, 
all the elements of harmonious and pure friendship, on the one 
hand, and all those of discordant passions and jealousies on 

12 



178 MENTAL ANGUISH AND PHYSICAL SUFFEEING. 

the other, will act with a force that may become more vastly 
effective, when released from the incubus of connection with 
such a material frame as sometimes burdens the spirit now. 

7. Let it not be said that this would greatly reduce the 
f earf ulness of retribution ; that by the withdrawal of physical 
sensibility the main grounds for apprehension or foreboding 
would be removed. We are not warranted to assert this. 
We cannot say what new condition of things might supervene, 
and more than offset the physical sufferings occasioned by 
vice. But it should be borne in mind, that even now, the 
keenest anguish of guilt, the torture that drives to desper- 
ation, that makes all physical suffering light in comparison, 
is not anything which is derived from nervous sensibility, or 
the constitution of the body. It is rather the anguish of the 
soul, the agony of conscious self-accusation, the burning sense 
of self-reproach, of remorse, of incipient despair. It springs 
from the consciousness of inexcusable wrong-doing. It is ag- 
gravated by the sense of wilful self-alienation from all that is 
good. The soul becomes its own accuser. It loathes and 
despises itself. It feels itseK everywhere repelled, without a 
friend from whom it would receive help among the good, 
without an ally it can trust among the abandoned and the lost. 

This is what is sometimes witnessed on earth. What rea- 
son can be urged that all this, and whatever more might 
accompany quickened and disencumbered emotional sensibili- 
ties, may not attend the soul to the future that follows a 
wasted probation ? Without borrowing the language of reve- 
lation to describe it, reason might pronounce it the torture 
that burns on downward and deeper, with the forever inex- 
tinguishable taper of the soul's existence. 

8. Of the continuance of the future retribution, reason can 
only speak from the light of analogy. It will continue while 
its causes continue ; and what prospect there may be of their 
arrest, may be inferred from the difficulty of arresting them 
now. Even his manifestly impending doom will not deter 
the drunkard from the indulgence of his appetite. The ter- 
rible risks of infamy and bitter penalty will not stay the 
criminal in his desperation. With the full knowledge of what 
they challenge, men defy the operation of all natural, social, 



VIRTUE AND THE FUTUKE LIFE. 179 

moral, and divine restraints. Tliey plunge into the gulf that 
visibly opens before them. The motives that should have 
paralyzed them at their first step in wrong-doing, lose some- 
thing of their terror at each successive step, till at length 
they are scarcely felt. Even when overtaken by the fate they 
have rashly and willfully invited, their I'epentance is often 
rather the regret that the law should be vindicated at their 
expense, than any genuine sorrow for their transgression. In 
heart tliey are still unchanged, and they bear with them still 
the same elements of passionate insubordination, of reckless 
seK-indulgence, of defiant contempt for virtue and its restraints. 
Of course, in such circumstances, recovery or deliverance 
from the power of habitual motives, that have long asserted 
iudisputtible supremacy, is practically hopeless. We cannot 
see where or how the process of retribution can be arrested 
by any of the causes by which it has been brought about. It 
threatens a duration commensurate with the soul's existence. 

9. If now we turn to the rewards of virtue, we can readily 
see how its entrance upon the future life may be to it the era 
of final and complete triumph, over all that it once had to 
struggle with or to fear. It passes from imprisonment and 
subjection to physical conditions, to spiritual freedom, leaving 
behind it not only pain, and disease, and the various ills inci- 
dent to the physical struggle for existence, but the sphere of 
temptation to which the soul was susceptible through its union 
with the body, and through which it was subject to perpetual 
harassment and assault. It may reap now in full measure 
the fruits of inward peace and outward beneficence. There 
is nothing to disturb a composure which is grounded on en- 
lightened self -approval and the consciousness of pure and holy 
auns. It is no longer inextricably involved, through physical 
relations, in associations from which it revolts, and if it may 
have access to its own chosen companionships, and give and 
take what help they may lend to the aspirations of goodness 
and virtue, it may, perhaps, be said that it has attained to the 
full and perfect measure of a gracious reward. 

10. We may conclude, therefore, that as the present is a 
state of probation, the future must be one of retribution. 
The seed is sown here for a harvest there. Upon tlie con- 



180 OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 

science a course of guilt must accumulate a burden of self- 
reproach, permanently crusliing. Ilabits of thought, feeling, 
and character, formed now, will then have become so rigid, that 
any prospect of change is hopeless, and ia these necessarily 
abide the elements of a misery as permanent as the depraved 
affections or tastes in which it originates. Keason can dis- 
cern no remedial provision in suffering endured, so long as 
kindred suffering, no matter how intense on earth, is seen to 
effect no radical or permanent reform. 



XY. 

INVALIDITY OF OBJECTIONS TO THE MOEAL SYSTEM. 

In the study of a field so vast and complex as that presented 
by the Moral System, difficulties are inevitable. These diffi- 
culties, however, are not so much in the facts, as in the rea- 
sons for the facts. Sometimes they consist in our inabihty 
to harmonize the facts with our preconceived notions, and 
might be removed if these notions Avere so connected or modi- 
fied, as to accord with the truth. 

1. But sometimes the difficulty is simply in the inadequacy 
of our powers to the problem we essay to solve. Such objec- 
tions as meet us in vindicating human freedom and responsibil- 
ity, in setting forth in a world of sin and death, the goodness 
of God, in harmonizing this goodness with the severity of 
probation, and in other kindred problems, can sometimes best 
be met by considering how inadequate are all our powers to 
comprehend even the conditions of the problem to be solved, 

2. With certain obvious facts within the sphere of out 
experience, we are, to some extent, familiar. But we know 
that there must be an infinite number of facts beyond the 
sphere of our observation, the distinct interpretation of which 
may be to us, circumstanced as we are, impossible. There 
may be connected relations between the facts we do knov/, 
and those we do not know, which must be studied and under- 
Btood before we can assume to be competent critics. But ii 



EXTENT OF THE MOEAL SYSTEM. 181 

it were possible for all the facts and relations to be known, it 
would still be impossible for a finite mind to grasp them in all 
their number and complexity. For we must ever b)ear in 
mind, when it is asked of any provision, any. arrangement, 
any particular feature of a general system, why it has been 
constituted as it is, that to render a full and satisfactory 
answer, we may possibly need to apprehend it in tlie various 
relations which it bears to the entire system, as Vv^ell as the 
several parts of the system to which it belongs. Some un- 
noted fact, some far-reaching consequence, some incidental 
result, might furnish us the key to the mystery, and resolve 
into light what was utterly inexplicable before. 

3. And no one can question that human probation may be 
such a feature of God's universal Moral System, that we 
should be justified in criticising certain aspects of it, only 
when we had comprehended the system itself in its various 
parts, and as a symmetrical and combined whole. As it is, 
we are incompetent to draw any line which we can assert to 
be the boundary beyond which the influence of a specific fact, 
law, tendency, or provision does not extend. As there is not 
a particle of matter in the universe, that does not, through 
the all-pervading principle of gravitation, exert its influence 
on every other particle, in every other world, however remote ; 
so in the moral frame, which is alike universal and infinite, 
we are not warranted to say that there is an event, or influ- 
ence, or provision tliat stands isolated, and can be judged by 
itseK alone. It would be unjust to judge the whole by the 
seeming defects of a part, when the correct apprehension of 
that whole would bring the ostensibly obnoxious part into 
harmony with all the rest, and restore to it all the symmetry 
of its relative proportions. 

4. If the universe is the work of a single mind, if it is 
characterized by unity of design, if it stretches beyond the 
measure of our thought, above and around us, into limitless 
space and boundless eternity, then does it constitute a scheme 
so vast, that none but an infinite mind is competent to pass a 
final judgment upon even a single feature of it in all its pos- 
sible relations. The sphere of our observation is narrow. Our 
faculties to observe and discern are feeble. The light of 



182 ILLUSTRATIVE ANALOGIES. 

reason or of nature, by wiiicli we see, is dirn, while any frag- 
ment of tlie vast system may sustain manifold relations, both 
to the known and to the nnknown, of which we are able to 
form no adequate conception, possibly no conception at all. Our 
limited sphere and limited powers impress upon us the lesson 
of humility. He that, from the standpoint of this atom-globe, 
and this inch of duration that we call time, should attempt to 
pass judgment on some minute portion or fragment of the 
universal Moral System, would exhibit only a practical anal- 
ogy to the microscopic insect, that after tedious eiforts, emerg- 
ing to the surface from some cave-like interstice of a minute 
pebble in a block of stone, deep buried in the foundations of 
a structure like Solomon's temple, or St, Peter's at Eome, 
should presume to criticise it on the basis of such informa- 
tion as his observation could gather up in that secluded nook, 
where sand -grains become Alps and Andes to bound his 
vision, and shut out the very possibility of any comprehen- 
sive conception of the magnificent whole. 

5. So there are even mechanisms, wrought by human skill, 
which appear inconceivably intricate. They are constructed 
wheel upon wheel in successive ranks, so that there may be 
found some among them that seem useless, or that appar- 
ently do not move at all. If now, upon one of these there 
should be discovered a seemingly unsightly projection, how 
might the superficial and hasty critic expatiate on its useless- 
ness, and condemn the folly of the constructor ! And yet it 
is not only possible, but it is very strongly to be presumed, 
that the time will come in the operation of that vast mechan- 
ism, when not only every wheel will move in its proper time 
and place, but when that unsightly projection will, in some 
most exemplary manner, vindicate the wisdom of its insertion, 
and justify the profound sagacity of the, perhaps, unknown 
builder. 

But it is easy to see that even such an illustration as this is 
utterly inadequate to set forth our relation to a system so 
infinitely complex, so inconceivably vast, as that universal 
Moral System of which our ov/n sphere might appear to our 
enlarged vision only as an outlying, minute province. Our 
questionings of why and wherefore, when we stumble upon 



INVESTIGATION DISSIPATES SOME OBJECTIONS. 183 

the investigation of wliat tlie great Maker has ordered ; when 
we ask, for instance, why probation has been made so severe, 
or v/hy some retributions seem so final, as w^ell as terrible ; 
may find the fitting rebuke for the presumption that they 
sometimes involve, in that awful silence with which the stars 
look down on our globe, as they sweep past it in their orbits, 
and eternity swallows up our dead centuries, like drops in its 
illimitable ocean. 

6. The simple fact, beyond which we cannot pass, and 
which forms an insuperable barrier to our presumptuous criti- 
cism, is that this Moral System, though a fragment considered 
in itself, can be no detached fragment, isolated from the 
mighty scheme of the universe to which it belongs. By itself 
it has never been comprehended by human reason, ever forced 
to shrink back repulsed and bafiied when it has undertaken 
its exposition. How much less, then, can it be understood in 
all its countless relations to the universal scheme itself ! And 
how shall that scheme be so comprehended that we shall feel 
ourselves competent to define its bearings upon earthly proba- 
tion and sublunary interests ! 

"We find, morever — and this is to be specially noted as a 
presumption against hasty objections — that, on investigation, 
the objections which are urged against certain arrangements 
in the constitution of the material universe, are seen to be 
often quite groundless. Plagues have ravaged the world, and 
men have regarded them as mconsistent with the divine be- 
nevolence. But when we trace them to their origin, we find 
them resulting from violations of the laws of nature, while 
the lessons they so terribly impress are of pennanent benefit 
to the race. Broad deserts stretch over portions of the globe, 
and this has seemed like waste or blunder in the scheme of 
the world's construction. Yet it is now held that the vast 
African Sahara heats the winds that sweep over the Mediter 
ranean, and bear to Europe the warmth and moisture that 
make it habitable and productive. Storms interrupt the 
peaceful order of nature, and torrents desolate the fields, 
yet they purify the air, and water the earth. The trees of 
the forest grow slowly, and wear out the centuries, in spite 
of man's importunity for the timber they produce ; yet if 



184 DIFFICULTIES AND MYSTEEIES. 

trees grew in a day, or the order of nature were disturbed to 
meet human emergencies, who could count upon that stability 
of things on which we ground our confidence, and our pro- 
visions for the future ? 

7. In the sphere of Probation and of the Moral System, the 
difficulties that meet us are manifold. The sins of the parent 
are visited upon his offspring. But who can say that the repeal 
of that provision which ensures this result, would not be an 
overv/helming calamity in robbing ancestral piety of one of 
its most cheering rewards, as well as breaking down the re- 
straints which hold in check the reckless impulses of the 
profligate parent ? The seeming impunity of notorious crimi- 
nals, up to the moment when their sudden doom overtakes 
them, seems inexplicable. But who can say that the final 
vengeance, more signal for the delay, or the trial of faith 
thereby occasioned to the good, may not be more than an offset ? 
The continued existence of whole tribes and nations that 
curse themselves and the world, century after century, by their 
turbulence and vice, may appear an insoluble problem. Bnt 
can we regard it as such, when a regenerated race, tens of 
thousands of years hence, shall look back at the terrible spec- 
tacle, and, warned themselves to practical wisdom, shall at 
once recognize and adore the long-suffering and the justice 
of God ? 

8. The planets took their name — V\^anderers — from the ap- 
parent irregularity of their movements. Yet they move in 
their orbits v.dth a mathematical precision. Are we warranted 
to say that the seemingly abnormal features of the Moral 
System are not in like manner reducible to the terms of 
universal law, both vdse and just? Of two sculptors em- 
ployed to make a statue for a pedestal, one produces what, 
seen by itself, appears an incomparable work of art, while the 
master-piece of the other seems disproportioned, rough, and 
uncouth. Yet it may be that, w^hen severally placed on the 
pedestal, the first shall appear dwarfed and misplaced ; while 
the other shall challenge the v/armest praise as exactly adapted 
to the position it is to occupy. So we may sketch out our 
ideal of a more perfect constitution of the Moral System, 
producing what, if practically applied, v/ould be a pigmy or 



DESIGN OF THE MOKAL SYSTEM. 185 

a monstrosity, while yet we may fall into tlie mistake of criti- 
cising the work of the Infinite artist, which, placed on its 
proper pedestal, will justly challenge the admiration and ap- 
plause of the whole intelligent universe. 



XYI. 

THE EKD DESIGNED IN THE MOEAL SYSTEM. 

Assuming, as we are now warranted to do, that a moral con- 
stitution of things exists, and that the origin and order of it 
must be ascribed to a Supreme Intelligence, it wiU follow 
necessarily that this Supreme Intelligence has a design to be 
accomplished, in reference to man in connection with the 
peculiar discipline to which he is subjected, and the order of 
things to which he belongs. 

1. If there is manifest design discoverable both in the con- 
stitution of nature and of man, and in their mntual adapta- 
tions, it is proper to inquire what this design is, and what is 
the end evidently contemplated in man's creation and pro- 
bation. 

Here we recur to what has been said already as to the uni- 
form and concurrent testimony of all the revelations of science 
as to the position occupied by man in the order of nature. 
The relations in which he stands to the entire material and 
animal creation, show that it is, and was meant to be, tribu- 
tary to him. The flower is beautiful and fragrant in itseK, 
but not for itself. It is man alone that enjoys it. For him 
the earth yields its fruits. For him, too, the animal creation, 
brought into subjection by his superior reason, lives and dies. 
The bird may be happy in its own song, but it warbles for the 
ear of man. The beast may excel in its strength, but it is the 
genius of man that utilizes it. He is gifted with powers that 
are denied their proper sphere, when they are not allowed to 
control the forces of nature within certain limits, and to retain 
the mastery over them. Without him, the visible creation 
would be like a pedestal witliout its statue — like a house with- 



186 MECHANISM OF PEOBATION". 

out an inliabitant. To know the divine design we must study 
the statue. We must investigate something more than the 
brick and mortar of the building. 

2. Design is manifest throughout nature. It is evidenced in 
the moral system ; but it culminates in man. Without him, 
all the marvellous arrangements and adjustments of the 
material world, with its beauties and its grandeurs, are but the 
exquisite frame waiting for its portrait. Yet the portrait 
must be worthy of the frame. The nature, capacity and rich 
endowments of the human soul are such that by proper mold- 
ing and discipline, it may supply such a portrait. Here then 
is the end, plainly kept in view throughout the whole scheme 
to which it belongs. This end is to make man as perfect as 
his nature will allow ; so to de^^lop and educate his being as 
to make the best that can be made of it ; expanding his pow- 
ers, and harmonizing them in a willing subjection to the high- 
est — that is, the moral — law of his being, so that he shall be 
seen to justify the wisdom lavished in providing his rich 
endowments and his favored lot. 

This is no groundless assumption. We have here the visi- 
ble and invisible, but by no means obscure, mechanism of 
probation, operating constantly upon human life and charac- 
ter. Studying its results, we find them various. They range 
from the line of admiration to that of contempt. There is 
the high and the low, the beautiful and the base, with all the 
intermediate gradations. By which of these shall we proceed 
to judge of the end in view for which a Moral System was 
established, and probation ordained ? 

3. In studying any human mechanism, to find out what 
kind of thing it was meant to produce, we do not interpret it 
by its manifest failures, or its imperfect results, unless these 
are invariably unifonn, and do not admit of improvement. 
We do not accept a defective and imperfect casting as author- 
izing us to set forth the molder's design ; but we select that 
which is most perfect, that which comes nearest to the full 
standard of the mold. So under this divine constitution of 
things, we infer the design of the author, not from those 
results which bear evidence of being abnormal, through un- 
favorable circumstances, or through the perversity of human 



IDEAL RESULT OF PKOBATION. 187 

will, but from those which seem most worthy of the lavish 
expenditure and wonderful provisions of the Great Designer. 

What are these ? Evidently the best possible development 
and structure of life and character attainable under the terms 
of a probationary Moral System. "What this is, does not ad- 
mit of question or doubt. Just as readily as we can distin- 
guish the metal from the dross, the diamond from the mass 
of gravel or earth in which it is hnbedded, or the wheat from 
the chaff in which it is buried, so readily can we distinguish 
the triumphs of probation from its failures. When tempta- 
tion prevails over virtuous aims, we see what we instinctively 
pronounce odious or contemptible; but when temptation 
simply tries, tests, and confirms that devotion to righteousness 
which it has failed to subdue, we witness a result, compared 
with which beauty of feature, sprightliness of genius, or bare 
intellectual symmetry lose their charm. There is nothing 
more beautiful than a pure and noble life ; nothing more 
repulsive than the dregs of a probation that has sunk to the 
level of selfish or sensual vice. 

To argue a point like this, is like attempting to prove an 
axiom. It appeals for its truth to the universal intuitions of 
the race. The end in view in the constitution of the Moral 
System is to produce the perfection of human life and charac- 
ter ; all, and more than all,which the old philosophers meant by 
the phrase, " living according to nature." " Whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
of good report " — all go to constitute, in their measure, that 
perfect ideal— often suggested, yet never but once realized on 
earth — which may be pronounced the most complete type of 
humanity, the faultless result of probation. 

4. It matters not to our argument that the attainment of 
this is so rare — that it constitutes the exception rather than 
the rule. A mechanism that produces but a single perfect 
fabric out of a thousand, reveals in that, more than in all the 
others, its own, and its author's design. ]^or is the world so 
poor in virtue, that out of its schools of trial, hardship, self- 
denial, or temptation, it has not sometime produced lofty 
characters, great 'and good men, who need no other eulogium 
than the sim]>le narrative of what they were and did. In 



1S8 NECESSITY OF TOIL OBJECTED. 

tiem, even while they often humble themselves as consciously 
imperfect, we recognize elements wrought out evidently in 
accordance with the divine scheme of probation, which show 
Avhat it was meant to produce. 

5. But in this moral development and perfection of the 
individual, a scheme that extends to the whole race is implied ; 
a scheme that would conduct each successive generation to even 
higher positions, in progress toward perfection. The race, as 
well as the individual, is subject to probation, and no reason 
for the discipline of one can be offered, which does not apply 
to all. The mere suggestion of the steady or persistent ad- 
vancement of the race, as the normal result of this present 
scheme of things, carries its commendation, if not the assur- 
ance of its truthfulness with it. There is a peculiar fascina- 
tion in the thought that at each new step of human experience, 
the new lessons learned shall help the race onward, till, in 
its progress, it has left behind it all its dross, and become 
relined to bear more and more perfectly " the image of the 
heavenly." 

With such considerations, then, in our favor, how can we 
but conclude, on strongly probable grounds, that the moral 
system is not only constituted with an end in view, but that 
this end is the perfection of the individual soul, and, through 
it, the progressive regeneration of the race ? Or, rather, how 
can we reach any other conclusion ? Is there anything to 
shake this, or to render it improbable ? 

6. It may be said, perhaps, that man is doomed to toil, and 
that his physical necessities chain him to tasks which leave no 
room for intellectual development and moral progress. To 
sustaui physical life and energy, he must therefore be a dnidge. 
But is this true ? Does such a necessity exist ? There are, 
doubtless, cases where it seems to be so, but in most of them 
there has been some original mistake committed ; or society 
itself, failing to improve its opportunities, has become de- 
generate and corrupt, and so stands in the way. But there is 
nothing in the original scheme of things which requires this. 
By proper forethought and industry, one may make all suitable 
provision for the body, and yet have time' and opportunity 
left for moral training and discipline. 



SLOW PEOGKESS OF THE EACE. 189 

But more than this, toil itself and the necessity of it may 
be made tributary to moral ends. The active energies are 
developed and strengthened by it. Man comes in contact 
with physical nature, to learn the conditions of success ; to 
find his path of exjDerience strewn with emblems of moral 
truth ; to discover that what a man soweth, that shall he also 
reap ; to understand that what is worth striving for, demands 
effort. Meanwhile, the necessity of toil wards off the danger 
that flows from the vices which idleness engenders. It impels 
to the study of the laws of nature, to devising means for 
taking advantage of them, to recognize rights of labor, rights 
of exchange, mutual obligation and the measure of it, inso- 
much that even before we have fully explored its sphere, 
reaching on to social arrangements and relations, we find that 
toil itseK lies directly in the line of moral training and moral 
progress. So far from being an objection to the truth of the 
theory that man's proper end, according to his Maker's 
design, is moral perfection, it rather tends to confirm that 
truth. 

7. Is it said that the history of the race gives no encourage- 
ment to hope that a scheme for man's moral perfection can 
be realized, or that a study of the past concludes against its 
possibility in the future ? It is, indeed, a sad truth, that Vv^here 
such a scheme has been cherished by some lofty and enthusi- 
astic minds, the}'' have often been doomed to disappointment. 
Their cherished plans have been wrecked upon the rock of 
human depravity, and often they have been compelled to sur- 
render their task in despair. Thus, for long periods, we see 
little progress made toward the desired result ; or, it may be, 
temporary progress is succeeded by reaction and degeneracy. 
The eye rests on gloomy tracts of history, ages of darkness 
and debasement, of violence and lust, of effete civilizations, 
and crumbling or dissolved empires. The impression which 
such a survey, apparently, is calculated to make is one of utter 
despondency as to the possibility of any brighter future. 

Yet, a conclusion of this kind is not altogether just or 
warranted. We see, on closer observation, something beside 
repeated failure and the collapse of effort. Out of the very 
ruins of these there are springing up, like verdure from 



190 KEAL ACHIEVEMENT. 

decay, hopes of better tilings. There are irrepressible out- 
bursts of reforming energy ; aspirations after an unreached, 
but imperishable ideal ; actual attainments, however partial or 
transient, that challenge admiration; possibilities and even 
actualities of virtue, which inspire a renewed enthusiasm, and 
give assurance that the scheme for the moral perfection of the 
race is not altogether a mere romantic dream. It is not too 
high or distant for human contemplation. It is repeatedly 
suggested. It lies directly in the pathway of our serious 
thought, and when once recognized, it is found often to 
possess a charm that fascinates the soul. 

Still more, all the failures and disappointments of the past 
do not bring about its final abandonment. Thoughtful minds, 
wrought upon by humane affections, refuse to relinquish it. 
Reformers are springing up — often in httle sympathy with 
the methods prescribed by revelation — who are bound, under 
some modified phase, to revive the scheme of the moral per- 
fectibility of the race. It cannot be buried so deep as to be 
beyond the hope of resurrection. Can we believe that a 
scheme that is so forced upon our attention, that is made so 
familiar to human minds, is strange and alien to the divine 
thought ? If the moral system is established for a designed 
end, what can that end be other than what has been desig- 
nated ? 

8. But has there not been some actual progress, however 
feeble or intermittent, toward this end? Has all the past 
been uniformly disappointment and defeat ? Has it exhibited 
nothing but the collapse of exhausted effort ? Far from it. 
Some things have been achieved of permanent value. !Names 
have been gained for the record of virtue that the world " will 
not willingly let die." Examples have been held up for imi- 
tation that are worthy of it, and that have been an educating 
power for after-generations. Laws have been made more 
just, usages more humane, and social and national morality 
has been elaborated in codes that have gained widening 
recognition. Even history, with all its dreary wastes, will 
not, when rightly read, tolerate the theory that the world is 
unprogressive, that through all the past there has been no 
pennanent gain, and that the human race must ever keep to 



WHAT MAT BE ANTICIPATED. 191 

its tread-mill task, never advancing, thongh. ever toiling. 
There has been actual progress, and progress in moral as well 
as other respects. The old pagan civilizations have perished, 
but something better has succeeded them. As the rubbish of 
the Roman empire decayed, the germs of Christianity sprang 
np through it. Europe felt the powers of a new life. It j)ut 
by its old barbarisms ; it adopted new usages ; it submitted 
to culture ; until now it presents itself at many points in con- 
trast, intellectually and morally, with what it was a few cen- 
turies ago. 

9. It is not necessary here to inquire into the causes of this 
progress. It is immaterial to the present argument whether 
it has been brought out exclusively by the ordinary operations 
of human energies, or by these impelled or supplemented by 
divine interpositions. If the latter are recognized, the whole 
matter in question is conceded, and we see the end to which 
a Divine Providence is visibly working. If it be denied, yet 
Christianity must take its place as a resultant in some way of 
natural forces that find their original in the Author of the 
moral system, and thus enters as a component and distinctive 
element in the divine scheme. 

Thus, we must concede that there has been actual progress, 
however limited or unsatisfactory, toward what reason sug- 
gests as the end for which the moral system was constructed. 
"We find no facts in human experience or history in conflict 
with the theory. We infer, inasmuch as no plausible rival 
theory has been or can be suggested, that this theory must be 
true. And yet, if true, we are forced to admit that human 
progress has been very slow, and that the end in view is, as 
yet, far short of attainment. 

10. In these circumstances, what are we warranted to 
anticipate as the course of divine procedure ? Here is a 
moral system, complexly constructed, a system, too, of "pro- 
bation, calculated to discipline and educate a race, and the 
obvious end in view — the only conceivable one worthy of the 
Great Author of the system — is the moral and spiritual per- 
fection of the race. That object is but partially attained. In 
some way — we are not required to state how — human per- 
versity has come in to frustrate its general attainment. 



192 A STKONG PKESUMPTIOK. 

Looked at, so far as the broad, eompreliensiye end in riew is 
concerned, the moral system appears to be a failure. Taking 
the past together, the scene is a dismal one. We see the 
result of probation apparently calamitous to the great and 
overwhelming majority. Ten fall where one stands fast. 
Impurity and vice and selfish greed are the rule ; their oppo- 
sites the exception. Such has been the process that has been 
going on for thousands of years, and during these years there 
have been periods when the prospect of anything better was 
utterly hopeless, when it seemed as if — conceding the end in 
view in the divine design to be what we have found it — 
nothing remained but the frank confession that it had been 
utterly and hopelessly defeated, and that the prolonged con- 
tinuance of the moral system would be only the allowance of 
continued degeneracy, a steady relapse from bad to worse. 

11. Why, then, has it been continued ? Evidently because 
it is not, even yet, and is not meant to be, a complete failure. 
Its continued existence is the strongest presumption, if not 
proof, that it has an end to subserve. We cannot, we dare 
not, impute to its Author an utter indifference to what looks 
like a deliberate, cherished plan, elaborately constructed and 
continued on for centuries upon centuries. We cannot re- 
concile its abandonment with wise and far-reaching design. 

There is a manifest and strong a priori presumption that, 
at some point, where an interposition becomes necessary, in 
order that the end in view may not be utterly frustrated, such 
interposition will take place. Let us suppose — -and the sup- 
position is simple historical fact — that, after the lapse of a 
long period, it had become increasingly manifest that the 
race, instead of advancing toward perfection, is obviously 
degenerating and becoming more corrupt ; that it is darken- 
ing the little light it had ; that, in its highest artistic culture, 
it is yet going more and more astray ; might we not presume 
that by some intei-position, through natural or supernatural 
means, this retrograde movement w^ould be arrested, and this 
tendency, in some measure at least, counteracted ? 

But this supposition does not come up fully to the facts of 
history. What are these ? The Apostle Paul has concisely 
summed them up in a single sentence — " The v/orld by wis- 



FACTS OF THE CASE. 193 

dom knew not God." At tlie very height, and in all the 
splendor of its intellectual attainments, it was, and remained, 
morally debased. That in the streets of Athens, the " eye of 
Greece," there should stand " an altar to the unknown God ; " 
that the Avisest of heathen teachers should humbly confess his 
own ignorance and inability to solve the problem of man's 
destiny, and bid his inquiring friends to wait for a teacher 
from heaven ; that in the writings of Plato, Cicero, Seneca, 
and Epictetus, where we meet with sentences that seem almost 
instinct with a divine wisdom, and indicate a profound study 
of natural law, we should lind conjoined with them doubts 
about fundamental trutlis, or false maxims in morals, remind- 
ing us at once of the greatness and weakness, the nobleness 
and the degradation of the loftiest intellects ; that these 
should, by silence at least, implicitly indorse gross supersti- 
tions and idolatries ; that, after having excited wonder and 
admiration by their genius, they should vanish like meteors, 
and leave no permanent light, but only the memory of their 
transient blaze ; that, on their disappearance, the race should 
resume again its career of degeneracy — that can scarcely be 
said to have been arrested by them — and that the course of 
speculation should turn back upon itself, and sink in the 
decrepitude of age at the cradle of a blind superstitious faith 
from which it sprung ; that, meanwhile, vice and violence, 
crude religious notions, and barbarous rites should resume 
their sway — all these things, repeated again and again, in some 
measure, in human experience — prove the incapacity of man, 
Mdthout aids beyond his own reason, to attain a permanent 
moral elevation, to make real and absolute progress, or to 
elaborate any ethical or religious system which could solve 
the problem of his destiny, disperse his doubts, calm his fears, 
inspire his hopes, or give lasting peace to his soul. 

12. If this is our conclusion from a survey of the condition 
of people intellectually most favored — teachers of after-ages 
in eloquence and art — what shall we say of the case of less 
privileged nations ? How pitiable seems their state, whether 
of intellectual helplessness or moral perversity ? Are the 
generations that are interminably to follow them to be left to 
grope their way in darkness, and no provision to be made for 
13 



194 CONCLUSION. 

their relief? If the great end of a moral system is not 
abandoned, shall there be no manifest effort or interposition 
to revive the possibility and prospect of a brighter future for 
the race ? Are these ages of moral weakness, ignorance, and 
degradation to be perpetuated ? Can we imagine an Infinite 
Mind, the Author of the moral system, framing it for the 
specific end of perfecting man in moral excellence, and 
elevating the race to a recognition of its near relation to 
Himself, comprehending at the same time fully the difficulties 
occasioned by human perversity, and the hopelessness of un- 
aided reason to grapple with them, thus measuring at a glance 
the whole problem, and discerning how near His own plan 
approaches to final defeat — can we imagine such a Being 
indifferent to the result, continuing the race, after all sufficient 
reasons for its continuance have ceased, and leaving it with 
utter unconcern to abide as the monument of His defeated 
designs ? 

This is, indeed, incredible. "We must anticipate powerful 
interposition of some kind. We must look for some divine 
rectification of the manifest evil, the introduction of some 
method to arrest the tendencies and forces that threaten the 
final defeat of a great design. 



XYII. 

DIVINE INTEEPOSITION ACTUAL OE PROBABLE. 

It may be said, perhaps, that we have had as yet so suf- 
ficient evidence of human degeneracy, inasmuch as the moral 
starting-point of the race may have been so low and degraded, 
that its subsequent career indicates marked and absolute, as 
well as relative, progress. Assuming this to be a fact, it may 
be argued that, with sufficient time and opportunity, the grand 
design of man's creation may be attained by his own proper 
resources, directed by sagacity and the accumulated wisdom 
of the past. 

1. If this be the view proposed, it can be met only by the 



ANCIENT THEISM. 195 

evidence of facts. Putting sacred history aside, that onr in- 
vestigations may be unbiased by what assumes the point at 
issue, we inquire, "What are the facts ? Amid the obscurity 
that covers the earlier history of the race, and the long periods 
that intervene before the human record becomes distinct and 
reliable, we must often grope our way and accept surmises 
and probabilities as approximations to the truth. Yet there 
are very strong indications that the moral and religious start- 
ing-point of the human race was far different from that of a 
debased feticism or idol-worship. 

The study of the comparative history of the religions of the 
most ancient nations with which we are acquainted, indicates 
a progressive debasement of the religious ideal with which 
they started. We are not, perhaps, fully warranted to assert 
that they all derived, by inheritance from a common original, 
that approximately pure Theism of which we find them pos- 
sessed at a very early period. Yet there can be no question 
that several of them did possess a Theism which embodied the 
main truths of l^atural Theology, associated and incorporated 
with which were views of the character, attributes, and provi- 
dence of God, which well accord with the simplicity and 
spirituality of a religious worship that had not as yet degene- 
rated into idolatry, or into those grosser fonns of polytheism 
which subsequently prevailed. 

2. Among the Chinese, for instance, we find what good 
scholars have regarded as conclusive evidence that they pos- 
sessed at a very early date — more than a thousand years before 
the Christian era— a knowledge of the One God, which was 
subsequently lost. AVhile civilization and the arts progressed, 
religious knowledge and purity as steadily declined, till to 
later generations the language in which their ancestors spoke 
of God conveyed no adequate meaning. Of Egypt, we know 
that it was early famed for wisdom ; that a supreme Deity, the 
Judge of the dead, was recognized by those who reared its 
earliest monuments, and left their religious thought pictured 
on walls or sculptured on pillars. The unity of the Supreme 
God and the immortality of the soul were fundamental points 
of the Egyptian creed at the earliest period of which any 
decisive trace survives, and this " Supreme God of Egypt 



196 HOW TO BE ACCOUNTED FOE. 

was, indeed, sucli as Jamblicus has described. Him — One, self- 
existent, eternal, and the Creator of all that is." In the case 
of India, Assyria, Persia — and of Greece also, if the facts 
asserted as to the Dodonean cultus can be maintained — we 
find the earliest worship the purest, as if nearest to the foun- 
tain-head of truth ; and with the progress of ages, we see it 
transformed, encumbered, and overlaid with idolatries and 
superstitions that almost disguise its identity. 

3. We may account as we please for this singular fact. But 
whatever theory we adopt, the conclusion is substantially the 
same. If we assume an original revelation, the common in- 
heritance of all these ancient nations, and suppose this revela- 
tion to have conferred upon them the knowledge of the One 
Supreme God, and kindred truths, we find " that where they 
knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were 
thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their 
foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be 
wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incor- 
ruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and 
to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" — the 
manifest proof of a steady and sad degeneracy, which no form 
or exercise of reason was sufficient to arrest. The only marked 
instance of its arrest is the case of the Jewish nation, and all 
will concede that only by peculiar institutions and peculiar 
teaching — not philosophical, but religious, and which they 
uniformly credited to divine and supernatural origin — was 
this arrest afEected. 

If, on the other hand, we assume that this early Theism was 
reasoned out ; that, independent of the traditional wisdom of 
ages, the human intellect grasped for itseK, and by itseK 
alone, the simple yet sublime and comparatively pure doc- 
trines of natural theology, by what process was this early 
treasure lost or corrupted ? How does it become overlaid and 
buried under cumbrous mythologies, that multiply fancifid 
deities, and identify them with idols, or the images of de- 
praved men, or even brutes ? Such progress as this evinces, 
is progress in the wrong direction. It is progress backward 
and downward, to the unreasonable, the incongruous, and the 
absurd. 



EELIGIOUS DEGENERACY. 197 

4, In either case, therefore, the original Theism of ancient 
nations was in advance, so far as pnritj and simplicity are 
concerned, of their later religious cultus. If this was due to 
an original revelation, we have that very interposition which 
seemed necessary to start the race upon the career which 
might answer the end of its creation. If it was the result 
of reason, then reason, deteriorated with the ages, became in- 
adequate to keep what it had gained, and gave full evidence 
that, if left to itself and its own resources alone, it could 
never advance to any fit apprehension of man's condition, 
relations, or destiny. In such a case it must be crashed, as it 
were, under the superstitions which it had admitted or toler- 
ated, and the great end for which human probation was in- 
troduced must necessarily be frustrated. The only condition, 
at least, of escape from this would be some sort of interposi- 
tion from a superhuman source, to revive lost truth, represent 
it with new vividness, and enforce it with new emphasis. 

5. But the very fact that there has been so extensively 
progress in the right direction, constitutes the basis for a 
strong presumption that there has been interposition to some 
extent. In no other way can it be accounted for. This is 
especially true in the case, already referred to, of the Jewish 
people. They possessed no marked intellectual superiority 
to other nations. In some respects they were inferior to the 
Egyptians, in others to the Syrians, and in others to the 
Greeks. Yet, while these other nations are becoming more 
gross in then* idolatries, the Jews, with alternating periods of 
degeneracy, are advancing to that confirmed Theism which 
almost startles the Koman general, when, pressing into the 
Holy of Holies, he finds there no visible embodiment of the 
object of worship. 

This is the more singular, when we find that as early as 
from 1500 to 2000 years before Christ, the original Theism 
was undergoing a rapid process of deterioration. The differ- 
ent attributes of Grod are separately deified. They are iden- 
tified with the powers of nature, or the mysterious forces 
which manifest themselves in the economy of the world. 
They are symbolized by animals. They are fashioned accord- 
ing to human tastes. Human fears, fancies, and passions in- 



198 A CHEERLESS PKOSPEOT. 

vest simple spiritual trutlis witli features and drapery of their 
own, until a Pantheon is constructed and an Olympus peopled 
with the creatures of a mythology which outrages reason and 
violates the sense of propriety as well as morality. 

The result -is an utter debasement of the religious ideal, the 
destruction of any conservative or elevating influence upon 
society. Villainy and lust are furnished with divine prece- 
dents, and the awful idea of God is dragged down to a human 
level. This is substantially true, not of one people, but of all. 
The evil is spreading contemporaneously over the globe. 
Everywhere — with a single exception — and that, at times, is 
scarcely an exception. Where is there any hope of improve- 
ment ? The original light is sadly obscured, and steadily be- 
coming more and more dim, till it flickers to extinction. If 
the breath of some reformer, more sagacious or pure-minded 
than those about him, fans it to a flame, it proves little more 
than a transient flash, expiring with the breath that kindled 
it. There is gross ignorance, or unreasoning credulity. Rea- 
son enters but a feeble protest, contemptuously disregarded. 
Age after age, while art and eloquence and brave deeds illus- 
trate heathen history, the moral darkness thickens, until the 
Eoman world, having subdued the nations, sinks under the 
load of its acquisitions, settling down from its height of gran- 
deur to a moral level, lower, possibly, than that of the banditti 
to whom its origin was ascribed. 

Contemporary literature reflects the almost universal de- 
spondency of the age, as well as its wickedness. Hope seemed 
dead. And well might this be. There was a deadly disease, 
as well as alarming symptoms. The doom of Sodom could 
scarcely furnish a more pointed moral than the fate of ITer- 
culaneum and Pompeii, buried, with the still-extant memorials 
of their hideous vice, under the volcanic shower. But if their 
fate was exceptional, their depravity vf as not. It was a tide- 
wave, not a river. It rolled on over the world, and no human 
power could stay it. All things seemed to be sinking in uni- 
versal decay. Learning and wisdom had toiled and spoken in 
vain. IsTo prophet's tone could be recognized in the voices of 
the time. An Epicurean or a Stoic philosophy might flash 
out brilliant apothegms, but to anxious, burdened, struggling 



THE ONLY GEOUND OF HOPE. 199 

souls, they were rather like the gleam of the meteor than the 
steady beam of the light-house to the tempest-tossed sailor. 

6. Heathenism could not hft itself out of its own darkness 
and degradation. The power of a Csesar, with victorious 
legions, could not arrest the progress of moral decay. No 
orator, no philosopher, no moralist, no priest, can be found to 
utter the word that shall call a dead nation back to life. This 
sad tnith runs through history. A conservative moral element 
is needed, but can nowhere be found. Nations may escape 
the blow of conquest, but it is only to fall under the stroke of 
their own vice. We pass on from age to age, as if over a 
fruitless, treeless waste — a Sahara of barrenness and death. 
If we meet with some stunted shrub amid the parched sands, 
or reach some possible oasis, it only serves to intensify the sad 
contrast. 

7. To suppose such a state of things to be continued on in- 
definitely, while presided over by such a Being as we have 
seen that the Author of the moral system must be, is incredi- 
ble. It is still more incredible that His original design should 
be abandoned — that design which is manifest in human pro- 
bation. "We can well conceive the wisdom of allowing human 
reason to demonstrate its own insuflSciency, to exhibit to the 
world the need of divine help, but we can discern no sufiicient 
ground for leaving the history of the world to become one 
uninterrupted record of tragic crime and depraved indulgence. 
We turn away from the appalling prospect, as one that im- 
precates the swift vengeance of a merciful as well as just 
annihilation, or some interference to help and save. 

8. Only in this last is there ground for hope. A race that 
has progressed in corruption as it has in art ; that has dimmed 
the light it had, and chosen darkness rather than light ; that 
is proved to have exchanged truth for fables, and rehgion for 
mythology ; that has only put forth spasmodic and uniformly 
abortive efforts to recover itself ; that has cherished dreams of 
blessedness and perfection, till they are found confessedly to 
be nothing but dreams — ^how shall it be brought up out of its 
self -wrought degradation, and put upon a new track ? This 
is a great, and, so far as reason is concerned, an unanswered 
question. For, surely, experience has shown that, of all pro- 



200 SELF-EECOVEET IMPOSSIBLE. 

jects, there is none more disheartening tlian that a degenerate 
people or race should recover itself hj its own unaided ener- 
gies, voluntarily relinquish its errors and vices, and spontane- 
ously resume a position of purity in thought and life, from 
which it has once receded. The thing has never occurred. 
It cannot occur. There is no lever to raise such a people. 
There is nothing to rest it on. There is no power to work ifc 
in reason alone. The theory of its possibility is simply pre- 
posterous. One might as w^ell propose to gather up the shat- 
tered or water-logged hulk and splintered spars of a dismantled 
wreck, and attempt to restore its decayed iihre and its lost 
beauty, and send it forth again to battle with the waves, or do 
brave service in the fleets of commerce or of war. He might 
as well propose to re-erect and replace the prostrate shattered 
columns and decayed temples of ancient oriental capitals, in 
order therewith to revive the long-vanished splendors of dead 
dynasties. As well might we cherish the hope that out of 
their cindered rubbish and fractured sculptures, the splendor 
of those old palaces in which kings once feasted and reveled, 
could be brought back, as imagine that the spent energies and 
demoralized life of nations can be reinvigorated by their own 
efforts, or that out of the pit of their degradation, into which 
they have fallen or plunged, they can lift themselves up by 
any means or resources of their own devising. 

9. What, then, are we to expect ? The swift vengeance 
that might have been apprehended, has not overtaken the 
race. It has not been flung aside like a broken vase, or re- 
jected as dross. Judgment is, as it were, kept back. Indeed, 
while degeneracy has been the rule, there has also been 
enough of exceptional progress to encourage the hope that a 
better issue of the grand experiment of probation, as a whole, 
may be expected. To what has this partial progress been 
due ? In each instance, to what has the appearance of Provi- 
dential interposition, and to what has been claimed as such. 
The original Theism of the nations can be explained satisfac- 
torily only by an original revelation, or an original pui'ity and 
strength of reason, which in the lapse of ages fell into decay. 
In one case, interposition must have taken place ; in the other, 
it is called for as a pressing necessity. Again, how is the 



ANALOGIES IN NATUKE. 201 

pure theism of tlie Jewish people to be explained ? While 
the rest of the world sinks into idolatry and gross mythologies, 
they possess a religions literature sublimely simple, and rich 
in outbursts of the grandest conceptions of the divine govern- 
ment, and the Providential order of the world. We can 
understand this — if their claims are just — if the founder of 
the nation and his descendants were under the direct training 
and guardianship of God. Otherwise, it remains an unsolved 
and insoluble problem. 

Again, when the old Roman world was sinking to decay ; 
when the force of Greek wisdom and art had expended itself, 
and left none to bear up its banner ; when in morals there 
was no character but that of satirist which authors could fitly 
assume ; when each successive age was sinking under the load 
of new vices and crimes, — this downward tendency was ar- 
rested by a new form of rehgion grafted upon the old Jewish 
stock, and that result was witnessed, in part described, and in 
part prefigured, in that gi'andest of prose epics, Augustine's 
De Civitate Dei. It was Christianity, at first as unobtrusive 
as the leaven hidden in the meal, that slowly, but steadily, re- 
molded society, built up again — what had never been done 
before — a new fabric out of old ruins, and for the first time 
made a new and permanent civilization possible. Does not 
this look like divine interposition in the world's history ? 

10. Now, is this interposition to carry out a specific design, 
without analogy in the natural government of the world ? 
When the heat would become too fierce and intolerable, does 
it not call up the breeze and storm ? When winter's cold 
would, if continued, destroy life, does not the sun turn back 
to rescue it ? When the law that bodies generally are con- 
densed by cold would operate on our rivers and lakes to carry 
the ice to the bottom, and make them glaciers that the sum- 
mer's sun could not thaw, is not that law suspended in this 
case of necessity ? When a Roman empire sinks in its own 
effete civilization, is not a hardier race called from northern 
forests to replace it with a new vigor ? When Liberty is 
writhing in the old world in dying spasms, is not the wilder- 
ness of the new made the sheltered home of Freedom, regu- 
lated by law ? 



XYIII. 

THE FACT OF A REVELATION CONSIDERED. 

If the probability" of some superhuman interference — to 
prevent the* otherwise assured and certain failure of the Moral 
System to answer its designed end — ^be conceded, a probabil- 
ity strengthened by the, at least, plausible assurance that in- 
terference has taken place, we are prepared to press another 
inquiry of no little importance. What sort of an interference 
do the circumstances of the case require, and what are the 
attainable objects which it must keep in view ? 

1. The evils to be met and remedied are manifold. The 
first of these is man's ignorance or uncertainty with respect 
to his condition and duty, his relations to other beings and to 
his Maker, and the terms of the trial to which he is subjected 
here. If there be a divine interposition, it must, therefore, 
take the form of a revelation, either restoring the lost truth 
in its original purity, or setting forth new truth in advance 
of the old, and truth applicable to the condition of man as a 
degenerate, or we might say, apostate being. Old errors must 
be, expressly or implicitly discarded. Mythological obscuri- 
ties and fungi must be swept away. Yital truths must be set 
forth in such a way that they may be popularly apprehended, 
reaching the understanding of not merely the favored few, 
like the pupils of ancient wisdom, but the great mass of 
nations, sunk in ignorance and indifference. 

2. This restatement of truth must be accompanied by what 
is applicable also to the new conditions of a race enervated 
by past degeneracy, and needing more than a general presen- 
tation of its exposure and its duty. We look for something 
which, while it accords generally with the highest wisdom of 
the best men of the past, far transcends it in distinctness and 
emphasis ; embodying a purer morality, a loftier ideal of 
perfection ; setting forth practical methods for realizing that 
ideal, and abounding in those more powerful motives by 
wliich the hearts and consciences of men may be impressed 
or inspired. 

(302) 



THE EEVELATION EEQUIKEI). 203 

3. "We may look, also, for some provision that shall be per- 
manently operative — that shall preserve the memory of truth 
and perpetuate its influence — that shall secure for it a recog- 
nized championship and trustworthy guardians — or, in lack of 
these, shall secure a permanent record, to be transmitted from 
age to age. 

4. How such a revelation, as the nature of the case requires, 
shaU be made, reason is silent. We are not warranted to say 
in what circumstances, or in what way, it shall be communi- 
cated — whether by the lips of inspired men or angels, or 
by articulate voices from heaven — v/hether once for all, or 
through successive ages — whether to one people, to many, or 
to all — whether by words only, or by words, institutions, and 
signs conjoined. The truth that is sufficient to instruct, to 
com-mand attention, to impress, to regenerate and save — this 
is all that is required, and nothing less will answer. 

5. Has a revelation of this sort been made ? There is but 
a single affirmative response among many, that is entitled to 
recognition and respect. A revelation is announced, and 
the Bible claims to be that revelation. In most respects it 
has no competitor. It is true that there have been many dif- 
ferent forms of professed revelation, enough to show the gen- 
eral sentiment — and we might even say, anticipation — of 
mankind that some revelation was to be expected. But 
among the systems which presume to rival that of the Bible, 
Yie find that most carry the condemnation of their claims 
upon their face. The polytheisms of past ages we dismiss at 
once. The religion of Mohammed, with its bloody intoler- 
ance and its sensual paradise, forfeits all title to our respect. 
'No one would seriously propose to improve Christian ethics 
by any substitution or supplement from Buddhism. The • 
question, then, is narrowed down to this. Is the sole claimant 
to the character of a revelation entitled to our respect ? 

6. We have noted the presumptive evidence of an original 
revelation, as necessary to explain the comparatively pure 
Theism of the ancient nations. We pass on then to the time 
when idolatry threatened to overspread the world, and we 
ask, By what means was its progress arrested among the Jews 
alone ? Certainly not by their superior reason or superior 



204 JUDAISM AND CHKISTIAJSriTT. 

genius. Their professedly sacred writings fnrnisli the only 
sufficient or satisfactory explanation. They were taught by 
prophets inspired of God. They were disciplined by provi- 
dences which deeply imprinted th^istic lessons on their hearts. 
"Holy men of old spake" as they were divinely moved to 
speak. So it was asserted. So it was admitted by contem- 
porary thousands, as well as assumed and professed by those 
that spake. 

If this be so, this peculiar exception to the religious usages 
and systems of the world is explained satisfactorily. We can 
account for it in this way, but in no other. Admit the ex- 
planation, and it concedes a revelation. Reject it, and some 
other is called for, and must be given if a revelation be 
denied. 

7. Again take the system, engrafted on the Jewish sacred 
writings — that of the gospel in the ISTew Testament — and see 
what the presumptions are that it is what it claims to be. 
It has proved itself the mightiest moral element in the world's 
history. Some most significant facts in regard to it are ob- 
vious almost at a glance. From the very first it has been 
scrutinized jealously, assailed vigorously, reviled, caricatured, 
persecuted often in the persons of its adherents. It had all 
the prestige of ancient mythology and philosophy opposed to 
it. It had to hold its own, or make its way against national 
prejudice, and power, and imperial sanctions, while its friends 
and allies were the weak and despised. But all combinations 
failed to crush it. ^Sij, rather it crushed them. It did more 
than the wit of a Lucian to make the old classic mythologies 
weak and ridiculous. It silenced forever the heathen oracles. 
It emptied the Pantheon. It robbed the temples of their old 
worshippers or filled them with its own. It broke or banished 
every idol in the Roman Empire. It reached kings on 
their thrones, and peasants in their hovels, and bowed them, 
oblivious of human distinctions, at the same altar. It leavened 
legislation, and tempered and molded public justice. It took 
possession of the schools, and educated nations. It shaped 
philosophy, and created a literature of its own, the most ex- 
tensive and elaborate that the world has ever known. The 
most inspiring heroisms of history have been born of it. It 



PRESUMPTIONS IN FAVOE OF CHRISTIANITY. 205 

has had for its cloud of witnesses, " the noble army of the 
martyrs." 

8. Its triumphs have been signal and numberless. It has 
pioneered all permanent progress. The slave, the prisoner, 
the outcast, the beggar, have been the objects of its compas- 
sion. In the most humane and charitable provisions of legal 
codes, in the triumphs of legislative reforms, may be traced 
its autograph. Despotism has never found any antagonism 
so persistent as that which it has originated. Philanthropy 
has found no alliance so effective as that which it has offered. 
'No other moral or spiritual force has ever exercised such a 
transforming power over man's social condition' and prospects 
as it has possessed. 

All this creates a strong presumption that there is some- 
what divine in it. It lies entirely outside of what might be 
considered the natural course of human progress. And if we 
add to this the fact, that the agents which it has employed have 
been won over by it, changed from enemies to friends, sur- 
rendering what they prized most, to accept reproach, or hard- 
ship, or self-denial, or even bitter persecution, the presump- 
tion is vastly strengthened. 

9. With this much conceded, we ask what internal evidence 
of its claims is afforded by this so-called revelation. The docu- 
ments which constitute it are derived from many different 
sources, and date from diverse ages. Their authors could not 
have conspired, and yet the result is a nnity — a complete and 
coherent system of religious truth, in which part answers 
to part, pillar to pedestal, foundation to cap-stone. The re- 
sult is as marked as the completion of some of the great 
mediaeval cathedrals of Europe, that were ages in building. 
Successive generations carried on the plan of the original 
architect, and when the work was complete, the shadow of 
spire and turret swept over the graves of those who had 
toiled at their tasks centuries before, and never exchanged 
views or counsels with their predecessors or successors. 

10. That this is no exaggerated representation of the grand 
unity of Christianity as a religious system, will be disputed 
by no one who has fairly studied it. Its leading doctrines 
are almost universally admitted. They follow one upon an- 



200 ITS SYSTEM OF DOCTEINE, 

other, or iit into one another, with an apparently unstudied, 
but logical sequence. Man's creation in God's image, vv^ith 
capacities to know, love, worship, and serve him ; his original 
uprightness ; his lamentable apostacy ; his depraved nature, 
in which conscience and feeling, reason and passion, are ever 
at strife ; his alienation from his Maker, and his exposure to 
the consequences of his willful transgression ; his need of 
clearer light ; of the help of divine grace ; of an atonement 
for his sin, on the ground of which he may hope for forgive- 
ness and peace ; the actual provision of a Redeemer, long 
foretold, in whom the divine and the human met, who spake 
as never man spake, lived as never man lived, died as never 
man died ; the sufficiency of this redemption for all the neces- 
sities of an apostate race, as verified by the experience of 
more than eighteen centuries ; the organization of a church, 
of the nature of a witness to the truth it is appointed to 
guard, against which human malice and "the gates of hell" 
should never prevail ; the duty and possibility of a moral 
change in man, so great as to be called regeneration, wrought 
without violation of human freedom by a divine energy work- 
ing in and through the truth, by which the subject of that 
change is made one with his Redeemer in hope, and sympa- 
thy, and spiritual brotherhood ; the fact of a probation, by 
which the future destiny of the soul is determined ; the glori- 
ous and yet gi-acious rewards of obedience, transcending all 
that eye has seen or imagination can portray; the fearful 
retributions of transgression imaged forth by terms whose 
meaning we vainly seek to fathom, as " the outer darkness ;" 
" the second death ;" the consummation and triumph of the 
divine design in man's creation through the glorification of 
the redeemed, and the assurance of their perfected purity and 
bliss forever ; — these are but a portion of the leading truths of 
the Christian system, which harmonize so wondrously, that, 
like the stones of an arch, you cannot tear one away unless 
all the others fall with it. 

Such a system must have had an architect, for its structure 
implies it, and its professed end declares it ; and that Archi- 
tect could not but have been divine. Of all whose writings 
have contributed to it, no one ever claimed the honor of it. 



POWEK OF CHEISTIANITY. 207 

Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, Jolm, and we scarcely know how 
many others, never allowed that they were anything more 
than instruments in working out a design they did not fully 
comprehend. But in the midst of them, among them, but 
not of them, there is One who, with a tone of divine authority, 
says, " I am the v/ay, the truth, and the life," and to His 
claims they all do homage. Who will venture to impeach 
either His integrity or His superiority ? 

11. But the full claim of this system cannot be weighed, 
without considering the actual power which it has exerted 
upon the human soul, when brought into competition with 
the most energetic of all opposing influences. It has repeat- 
edly vanquished them all. It has routed them, Hke a defeated 
army. It has disarmed inveterate passions. It has wrought 
the cheerful surrender of the most cherished plans. Curios- 
ity, avarice, ambition, thirst for revenge, aspirations for ease, 
or honor, or fame, have given way before it. It transformed 
a persecutor into an apostle. It has made the ambitious 
scholar more than willing to become the obscure missionary. 
It has taken their terror from prison, exile, torture, and the 
flames. Out of timid souls, it has made heroes and martyrs. 

12. And if we look to more commonplace and every-day 
experience, we find that in all literature, ancient or modem, 
there is nothing whatever like the Bible, to illustrate " the 
power of a book." The secret is not in its age, or its style, 
or its grand simplicity, or its poetic beauty, however remark- 
able these may be. It lies deeper. It is in the truth it re- 
veals, and the motive power which this truth develops. By 
these its hold upon the heart is oftentimes, so far as there is 
any human measure of it, simply omnipotent. Some have 
gone so far as to call this hibliolatry, but that term demands 
explanation. So far as there is any truth in it, it carries us 
back to survey that long process by which the soul has come 
to be knit to what it regards as dearer than life itself. Then 
it is seen how wondrously adapted, like a key to a most com- 
plex lock, is the truth of this book to the nature and v/ants, 
fears and hopes, of the human spirit. It tits itself alike to all 
ages, all races, all grades of thought and culture. It stoops 
to childhood, and fascinates it by narrative and vision, and 



208 REVELATION AND THE MOEAL SYSTEM. 

ideas so grand and solemn, as to overshadow or illuminate the 
whole horizon of its future. In maturer years, it has the most 
satisfactory response to be found on earth, to questions of 
human destiny, and when age comes with its burdens and 
shadows, it is the only thing in the whole realm of reality 
that promises to lighten the one or illuminate the other. 

The question whether such a production may be considered 
simply human, must be asked in view of the presumption 
that revelation might be expected ; in view of the fact of its 
admitted necessity ; in view of the design in accordance with 
which this Moral System is constructed, and in view of what 
this revelation is in itself, and what it has accomplished. To 
it there can be properly but one answer. It constitutes a 
superhuman element in God's providential government of the 
world. 



XIX. 

EEVELATION AND THE MOEAL SYSTEM. 

Accepting as indisputable the conclusion that some divine 
interposition was called for, if the end for which this moral 
system was evidently established was not to be defeated 
through human debasement ; and also admitting the strong 
presumption that the tendencies implied in this debasement 
have been checked, by what purports to be revelation or 
divine interference, we are prepared to inquire whether, in 
the scope of this assumed revelation, there is anything that 
necessarily conflicts with the moral system as already ex- 
pounded, and on what points revelation and the conclusions 
we have reached in regard to the moral system, harmonize. 

1. One main objection to a revelation is, that it is encum- 
bered by miracles. Eut this objection loses much of its force 
when it is considered that revelation itself, though communi- 
cated through human instrumentality, is itself a miracle. It 
lies outside the line of what the course of human history 
teaches us to expect as the result of unaided human develop- 
ment. Men, left to themselves, form theistic conceptions 



THE SrPEENATIIEAL IN EEVELATIOK. 209 

after the pattern of their own sensual imaginations or per- 
verted tastes. Thej lack, in themselves, that original impulse 
which is necessary, at once, to elevate their conceptions and 
bring them up to the moral and spiritual level, which in ex- 
ceptional cases, as in the instances of the ancient Jews and 
the early Christians, they actually attained. The moral con- 
trast between Greek and Hebrew literature, as between 
Greek and Hebrew religion, cannot be explained on the 
principles of natural reason alone. 

But, if a supernatural element must be called in connection 
with this exceptional moral and religious development, the 
revelation, or succession of revelations, which is thus intro- 
duced, is of the nature of a continuous miracle. If the reve- 
lation is supernatural, the methods by which it is communi- 
cated or confirmed may well be also. The difficulty is not in. 
the repetition of what is miraculous, so much as in its occur- 
ring at all. The presumption against miracle is destroyed the 
moment it is admitted that actual history presents us facts 
which are explicable alone on the theory that miracle — or that 
which transcends the unaided powers of man — has taken 
place. 

But, in the sphere of human experience, we are constantly 
coming in contact with a will-force that controls and modifies 
the action of physical laws. We may call this will-force 
natural or supernatural, but, in the one case, we enlarge the 
sphere of the natural, so as to take in what is quite excep- 
tional and overruling, so far as physical laws are concerned ; 
and in the other, we admit expressly that an intelligent will- 
force must be recognized as super-sensuous and inexpKcable 
on the principles of natural philosophy. It is in no case con- 
trary to analogy to suppose the uniform operation of the 
ordinary laws of nature to admit of arrest or modification 
through the action of the will, and with reference to ends 
important enough to warrant such arrest of modification. If 
the great end of Probation requires for its attainment such 
interference as may be pronounced miraculous, the minor end 
of the uniformity of physical law may well give way to it, on 
the presumption of a will that has the capacity to set it aside. 
"We conclude, therefore, that in the presence of such an end 
U 



210 PEOVIDENCE m HISTOET. 

as probation has in view, tlie miraculous element in revelation 
is what not only may be expected, but is actually necessary. 
The incredibihty of the miracles will attach to them not as 
miracles — in themselves considered — but in their specific 
character only. The presumption against them is set aside 
both by the ascertained fact of a revelation and by the exist- 
ence of an actual will-force in the human sphere, that tran- 
scends and controls physical law. 

2. The doctrine of a Divine Providence, as taught in the 
Scriptures, harmonizes with design as implied in this moral 
system. That Providence must extend not only to the 
general plan of the system which it conducts, but to all its 
parts. The moral system, like the material, is one. As there 
is not a world, not an atom, that is not connected with the 
entire universe, so there is not an event of human history 
that stands isolated and alone. A general providence implies 
a particular providence. A mechanism is incomplete where a 
single wheel, or pin, or cog, is wanting, and nothing is more 
obvious than that many of w^hat are called the great events of 
history have hinged on small events or occasions. A most 
trivial incident, apparently, has changed the career of men 
and nations, and no one can intelligently accept the doctrine 
of a general providence, and make it less comprehensive or 
minute than that which revelation ascribes to the Omniscient 
and Eternal Mind. 

3. Read in the light of revelation, history is a continuous 
commentary on an overruling Providence. The events of 
time, introducing new scenes, opening new prospects, and 
these suggesting a steady progress toward the regeneration of 
the race, move along with a dramatic order and unity, and 
their very confusions and incongruities harmonize as they con- 
tribute to the evolution of a plan which connects the begin- 
ning and progress of this scheme of things with a predeter- 
mined end. Thus, the calling of Abraham ; the special 
rehgious training of the Jewish nation ; the laws and types 
of its worship, foreshadowing fuller revelations, as the Paschal 
Lamb prefigured Him who is called " The Lamb of God ; " 
the tuition of bondage and captivities, preserving the chosen 
people from surrounding idolatries ; the sublime lessons that 



HTJMAK DEPEAVITT. 211 

fell from tlie lips of the prophets ; the advent of the " Desire 
of all nations," when His way was prepared ; the nnity and 
peace of the old Roman world, when His Gospel was to be 
published ; the crystallization of medigeval Christianity in a 
hierarchy which preserved the truths fatal to itseK ; the out- 
burst of reforming energy, when the discovery of the new 
world, and of the printing-press, and the diffusion of the old 
classic literature on the fall of Constantinople, had prepared 
the way for it ; the planting of a Christian civilization in this 
then Western wilderness, and all the wonderful events which 
have since inspired the hope that all nations — as prophecy 
long ago foretold — shall be regenerated ; — all these are but the 
great land-marks of that history of the world which elucidates 
the scope of a divine design, and evidences the continuous 
presence of an overruling Providence. 

4. But, when we turn to the subject of man's individual 
relations to God, we iind that revelation inculcates some doc- 
trines which may be examined on their own merits, and in 
the light of their own specific analogies. 

Among these, one that is never lost sight of, and is funda- 
mental to others, is what is termed human depravity. This 
does not deny man's moral sensibility, or his possession of 
capacities for generous and noble efforts. It does not imply 
the lack of a conscience that upbraids him for wrong-doing, 
or the necessary absence of a high moral ideal. It does im- 
ply, however, a native tendency to alienate himseK from God, 
to make self-interest his law, to prefer ease or comfort or 
pleasure to the claims of duty, and in the indulgence of pas- 
sions which usurp the place of reason and conscience, to be- 
come worse instead of better. 

But what are the analogies of human experience ? "What 
means the universal distrust felt toward those with whom 
men deal, if they have not proved their truth and honesty ? 
What, according to all writers on government, is government 
itself but the check of individual selfishness by the combined 
selfishness of society, forced in self-defence to appeal to justice 
and that natural law which is inscribed ineradicably in the 
constitution of man and of society itself ? 

5. The manifest opposition of this depravity to natural law, 



212 ATONEMENT. 

to the moral code wliicli has God for its author, subjects it to 
deserved condemnation. Man is a transgressor of that lav/. 
He fails in that supreme love and perfect service ""vhich he 
owes to God. The sense of this forces him to ascetic and 
superstitious rites. Heathen sacrifices, self-inflicted tortures, 
costly ransoms, grew out of it. The need of expiation or 
atonement is confessed. The conscious burden of guilt rests 
on the soul, and no rhetoric or logic of mere reason can re- 
move it. Revelation accepts the fact of this burden, this 
exposure to law, this condemnation, and it makes known what 
is called an atonement. It represents Christ as that Lamb of 
God, foreshadowed bj the Paschal Lamb of Jewish history, 
who offers Himself as a sacrifice, an atoning sacrifice, for the 
sins of men, with whom He identifies Himself by assuming 
their nature. 

Here we have the statement of what, by no possibility, can 
find any perfect analogy on earth or among men. But is the 
principle of it v/ithout analogy? Why have patriots laid 
down their lives ? Why have martyrs been content to die ? 
Why have philanthropists worn themselves out to benefit 
ungrateful and unappreciating thousands ? History would be 
poor, indeed, in great and inspiring examples, if you took out 
of it the element of voluntary vicarious sacrifice. What is 
Redemption itself, according to revelation, but the crowning 
illustration of the principle implied in such sacrifice ? And, 
if this be so, who can deny the substantial harmony of an 
Atonement with corresponding features of the moral system ? 

6. Take up, now, the doctrine of " Original Sin " — as it is, 
not very felicitously, called — the apostacy of the race in its 
first progenitor. Of course, there is and can be no perfect 
analogy of it within the sphere of our observation. But can 
we, with human experience before us, deny the fact of trans- 
mitted depravity, the vitiation of nature working out a hered- 
itary curse ? The sins of the fathers are visited upon the 
children, not only through the infiuence of example, or as the 
consequences of parental indolence and vice, but by that con- 
stitution of things by which the perverted faculties and tastes 
and appetites of the parent descend to his offspring. This 
may be termed an injustice, but, before that tarm is applied, 



EEGENEKATION. 213 

it sliould be asked on whom the responsibility rests for the 
perversion of an order of things by which, if man had never 
depraved himself, only good results would have followed. 

There is another analogy, where a faithless trustee sacrifices, 
by his folly or wickedness, the interests of those he represents. 
He may be at the head of a corporation or a government ; he 
may be the trusted agent of a company or a state ; but he 
acts in a federal or representative capacity. Hundreds, per- 
haps, or thousands, or possibly, future generations, innocent 
of the original transgression, suffer through his fault. The 
position of Adam necessarily gave him such a relation to the 
race, as their progenitor and representative both, as no other 
one could possibly occupy, and may not the results be cor- 
respondent ? 

Take another prominent doctrine of Revelation, the neces- 
sity of such a change in man's nature and disposition, in his 
views and practice, as the Great Teacher denominated being 
" born again." Who, when he considers the relation of a de- 
praved human nature to the holiness of the divine, can for a 
moment question this necessity ? And is it not in analogy 
with other moral changes, so far as these extend, in the matter 
of appetites, tastes, and aspirations ? And can any one ques- 
tion the fact of this change having often taken place, and that 
in so marked a manner that the result seems to be not only a 
reformed life, but a new nature — the drunkard becoming 
sober ; the violent, gentle ; the persecutor, an apostle ; the 
revengeful, forgiving ? 

1. Then, take the natural constitution of this moral system, 
as already exhibited, and lay it alongside the moral system of 
Revelation. The correspondence is perfect as far as it extends. 
In both, God is legislator and administrator. In both — virtue 
corresponding to holiness — the advantages of wickedness are' 
temporary ; the triumph of goodness, in the end, assured and 
eternal. In both, the elements of retribution are alike in- 
volved. In both, law is sovereign, and the arrest of its 
execution is but transient and readily explained. , In both. 
Probation is a leading feature, modifying the administration 
of moral government, and adapting it to a state of trial in 
which evil is left free to evince its nature, and virtue is sub- 



214: [ VAUIOUS ANALOGIES. 

jected to a discipline which, though it seems harsh, operates 
to confirm virtuous purpose and give fixedness to character, 
and development and strength to its every grace. 

8. In the natural government of the world we meet with 
that invariable sequence of cause and effect whi<^h gives a 
plausible aspect to the theory of necessity. And we meet 
also with facts that demonstrate, that whether allowed or 
denied, that theory does not set aside the fact of personal 
responsibility. So, in revelation, we meet with the opposite 
poles of the eternal designs or pui^oses of God, and the free- 
will of man ; and however plausible the argument of the man 
who says, " All is fixed ; I cannot change it " — ^he is con- 
fronted with the assertion of personal accountability, " What- 
soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 

9. In the natural government of the world, again, we have 
to deal with fragmentary parts of a universal system, to us 
practically infinite. We are incompetent to criticise, as a 
whole, what is manifestly a part ; and our judgment is to be 
held in check or abeyance by the consideration of our ignorance 
and limited powers. But does not revelation present the same 
system, only with portions more minutely portrayed, while it 
asks, Whoy by searching, can find out God ? — while it teaches 
us expressly that here we see, as through a glass, darkly ? 
Could there be a more perfect correspondence in the nature 
of the case ? 

10. As to the results of Probation, are not those which are 
foreshadowed in the moral system of nature precisely such as 
are distinctly asserted in Revelation ? There some are final in 
their fatality. There is no place for repentance. There is no 
possible recovery of the past. Does not this exactly express 
the aspect in which Revelation exhibits the issues of proba- 
tion ? Is there not here also a fixed point, where the chmax 
of probation is reached, beyond which the triumph or the 
failure is final ? 

11. Thus does the system of Revelation coincide with the 
moral system of nature. It cannot be confuted, though ob- 
jections may be raised to it. But most of these objections 
are almost precisely the same that may be, and sometimes 
have been, urged against the moral constitution of things 



SUMMAJJT. 215 

wliicli exists before our own eyes. In denying many of the 
leading doctrines of Revelation, we must logically deny many 
corresponding facts of the Moral System. 



XX. 

- SUMMARY AND CONCLTISION. 

The course of our argument, from premises to conclusion, 
has been along the stepping-stones of fact. A Moral System 
exists, with its constitution and laws. It must be recognized, 
and it is recognized, as a fact of actual experience. Man's 
moral nature — such that he is forced to be a law to himself ; 
his complex being, which becomes a chaos or a torture- 
chamber unless the moral authority of conscience is para- 
mount; social retributions, domestic and civil government,- 
with their rewards and penalties, — all these are indisputable 
facts, uniting with others to constitute the complex fabric of 
a Moral System. 

This system indicates constructive design. Accident, or 
" the nature of things," cannot explain it. Its penalties would 
be impossible if the body were not so constituted as to allow 
it to suffer through mental transgression — if it were not so en- 
dowed as to be made a medium of suffering through social re- 
taliations or ancestral guilt. But this, instead of being a neces- 
sity of " the nature of things," is evidently designed. We 
can suppose it to have been otherwise, so that, in being what 
it is, it conforms to conditions which must be presupposed 
and predetermined, in order to bring about these results, by 
which the seal of approval is set to virtue, and that of repro- 
bation affixed to vice. Here, too, we stand on the solid basis 
of fact. 

Again we say, and have the right to say, that the character 
of the Author is reflected in His system. The design mani- 
fest in it is His. We infer His character from this manifest 
design. We say He is wise, just, and good — wise because all 
the arrangements and adjustments of the Moral System imply 



216 SUCCESSIVE STEPS OF ARGUMENT. 

it ; just, because these arrangements are plainly intended to 
favor justice ; good, because even where pain is inflicted, it is 
in most cases plainly salutary or monitory, while, in count- 
less instances, enjoyment is actually provided for. Here we 
deal with facts. 

Om' next step simply asserts that man's existence is com- 
prehended in the scheme of Him who is wise, just, and good. 
There is no evading this. It follows, then, that the scope of 
man's being cannot be inconsistent with the pei-fect wisdom 
that must be justified in it : it cannot be inconsistent with the 
justice that will ultimately assure virtue its exact reward, and 
vice its exact penalty : it cannot be inconsistent with perfect 
goodness, which we can scarcely suppose engaged in bestow- 
ing conscious powers by which man is exalted only to the 
misery of appreciating what a destiny annihilation is. On 
these grounds — obvious facts — we base the plain presumption 
of a future life. 

Again, we assert that this present life is a probation. In 
some respects, it is confessedly so. It is so up to the close of 
what is visible here, although in a steadily decreasing ratio. 
But it cannot be, without implying that the present existence, 
as the preface to a future, is probationary. What we see of 
its results confirms the conclusion. Here are facts, with the 
least possible element of presumption. 

Once more, we assert that the future state must be one of 
retribution. It cannot but be so, if the laws and tendencies 
that affect the spirit now continue to operate. Continued 
conscious existence on earth would ever more and more ap- 
proximate to perfect retribution. The dissolution of the body 
must, on the whole, if it leave the soul to itself, expedite 
the operation of retributory forces. 

We take our stand again on the ground of conceded fact, 
when we assert that man, in his present state, only exception- 
ally at best, attains the end worthy of creation and probation. 
He bears evidences of having degenerated from the original 
state in which he was made. Heathen aiithors have insisted 
on what is equivalent to the fact of human depravit}-. There 
is a call for interposition. Man cannot restore himself, or, at 
least, has rarely, if ever, made any serious effort to do so, 



INCEEASING FOKCB OF THE AKGUMBNT. 217 

except in cases where lie was plied by motives that he ac- 
counted supernatural. The recovery of the mass of men, 
without more powerful motives and clearer knowledge than 
human reason affords, is evidently hopeless. 

We have the right to infer, therefore, that in a system con- 
stituted like ours, if the design of it is not to be defeated, 
there will be supernatural interposition. The disordered ma- 
chine will never right itself. It must be set right by its 
Author, or He must supply the means to this end. It is not 
for any one reasonably to call this in question. 

Again, there are strong grounds for asserting that interpo- 
sition has taken place. The early Theism of ancient nations 
antedates their idolatry and Polytheism. They exchanged 
spiritual for idol worship through a process of degeneracy. 
They wandered farther and farther into darkness. In some 
cases, this wandering was arrested. It was, by what was as- 
serted, and what purported to be, divine interposition. The 
Revelation in which the assertion is made is unlike all other 
human productions. Its manifold phases ; its complex struc- 
ture ; its substantial and wonderful harmony in itself ; its un- 
rivaled power in literature ; its unprecedented triumphs ; its 
superhuman ideas — all unite to attest its divine original. Here 
we stand upon admitted facts, and simply assert their most 
obvious and natural explanation. 

Each new position, as we advance, is thus seen to be in 
itself probable, and in some cases, such as scarcely to admit 
of dispute. But each new position, as it is itseK substanti- 
ated, strengthens all the others. From the firm buttress of 
the bridge — the Moral System — we advance pier by pier — the 
whole structure gathering to itseK mutual support as new 
additions are made- — till we reach the last pier, and find it to 
be the well-supported buttress that extends its strength back 
to all that had gone before. In other words, all the leading 
truths of the Moral System, which have their correspondencies 
in the asserted facts of revelation, are not so much links in a 
chain, where, if one is broken, all coherence is at an end, as 
pillars in a common structure, where each not merely rests 
upon its own foundation, but lends support to every other, 
and to the entire edifice. 



218 CONCLUSION. 

The result is tliat the Moral System takes its place in the 
broad and comprehensive scheme of things, as that to which 
all else is subordinate. What the body is to the soul, physi- 
cal nature is to the moral realm. Science, throughout all her 
departments, pays tribute to the spiritual supremacy of man. 
ETature must be interpreted by its relation to its ultimate end, 
and that end is revealed in the divine design manifest in man. 

Thus read, the universe, with all its mysteries that remain 
unsolved, is no longer the sphynx-riddle that puzzles and 
confounds humanity, sinking to despair, "With Lord Bacon, 
we recognize the fact that "this universal frame of things is 
not without a mind." With Locke, we confess the inadequacy 
of human reason to discover that which, when revealed, ap- 
proves itself to reason, and thus with him subscribe to the 
'' Keasonableness of Christianity." With Milton, we soar above 
the ruins of human apostacy, to discern beyond a " Paradise 
Lost," the hope of a "Paradise Regained." Life has a mean- 
ing, and it may have a beauty and a destiny worthy of that 
Divine tuition by which it is in training for an immortal 
sphere. The development of the race is under the guidance 
of One who sees the end from the beginning' and who can 
make future ages of perfected humanity, the contrast to that 
introductory period of darkness that has gone before. 

To recognize the existence and laws of the Moral System 
is the obligation by which reason is bound. To conform life 
to its conditions is that practical wisdom that leads to the 
highest blessedness, here or hereafter, which man can hope to 
enjoy. The laws of duty are as real, as changeless, and as 
abiding as the relations — constituted by the great Maker — 
out of which they spring. We can suppose the material 
frame-work of the universe dissolved, reduced to primeval 
fire-mist, or even annihilated, but we cannot conceive that 
truth and falsehood, holiness and sin, can ever change their 
nature, or that over a violated conscience, or through the tor- 
tuous paths of transgression, man can pass onward to the goal 
of his perfected being. He is the subject of a Moral System, 
which reflects the love of a Father and the authority of a 
God. To the terms of that system he must conform, or hfe 
becomes at once a rebellion and a curse. 



QUESTIONS. 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, 

I. What is system ? How extensive is it ? What two classes of 
elements does it include ? Why may moral elements be said to 
be natural ? What is the Moral System ? How is it natural ? How 
is it to be distinguished from moral government ? May a moral 
system be proved by evidence that would not establish a perfect 
moral government ? Why has the Moral System been variously 
apprehended ? What is a leading characteristic of the History of 
Herodotus ? What was the doctrine of Pythagoras as to virtue 
and vice ? What other doctrine is he said to have held ? What 
were the views of Socrates ? What were the leading views of 
Plato ? Was Aristotle a Theist ? What doctrines of a moral sys- 
tem are presented in Homer ? What other Greek writers support 
similar doctrines ? What are the peculiarities of ^schylus and 
Sophocles ? What view did the Epicureans take of the Moral Sys- 
tem ? What were the pecuUarities of the Stoics ? What was 
Cicero's position ? What did Seneca hold ? What did Plutarch 
teach on lingering retribution ? What view did Marcus Aurelius 
Antoninus take of Fate ? What was the character of the ethical 
teachings of Epictetus ? What Roman poets and historians are 
mentioned as bearing testimony to the Moral System ? 

II. What three elements were combined to produce Gnosticism ? 
What did Gnosticism essay to do ? What was Neo-Platonism ? 
What terms in Greek literature are of great moral significance ? 
Of what is Nemesis expressive? What is the character of the 
Erinnyes ? Is Fate used in different senses ? How in Homer ? 
How is the sense of the word in Herodotus to be exijlained ? What 
does Hierocles maintain ? With what does Jackson assert that 
Fate was synonymous ? By what writers is he sustained ? Is 
Fate generally used in a sense consistent with human responsi- 
bility ? 

III. What leading features of the Moral System are conspicuous 
in the Jewish Scriptures ? In what portions of these are they 
most strikingly manifest ? What may be said of many of Christ's 
parables ? How came the study of the Moral System to fall into 
partial neglect ? What exceptions to this were there among the 
early Christian Fathers ? What questions of natural theology 
were early Christian writers led to discuss ? Did Mohammedan 
writers take up similar topics ? What had Scholasticism to do in 
this connection ? What was the first great English work to dis- 
cuss the Law of Nature ? What other two works soon followed ? 

IV. What eminent English writer stood opposed to the views of 

(319) 



220 QUESTIONS. 

Hooker and Grotius ? What controversy originated with him ? 
What were his views as to the Law of Nature ? What two classes 
of opponents did he meet ? Mention some of his leading assail- 
ants, of the Platonic school ? To what did Bishop Cumberland 
trace obligation ? How does Bishop Parker hold that the obliga- 
tion of rules of life may be demonstratively established ? What 
two points does he urge ? Does he hold that a moral constitution 
must be admitted, even by Atheists ? Does Archbishop Tiliotson 
make the obligation of moral duties to depend on revelation ? 

V. What was Locke's position as to innate ideas, and a Law of 
Nature ? By whom, and how, was the power of reason exaggerat- 
ed ? What was Locke's position as to the relation of the Law of 
Nature to Revelation ? What was Toland's aim ? What Deistic 
writers followed Toland ? AVhat was the plausibility of Tindal's 
argument ? What noted work gave Tindal an advantage to pre- 
sent his views ? 

VL To whom is it probable that Pope was indebted in his prep- 
aration of his " Essay on Man ?" What is its professed object ? 
What does he insist upon as man's duty ? What is the character 
of his third and fourth Epistles ? How is the Essay related to the 
controversy going forward at the time ? On what grounds is it 
important ? What are some of the more noticeable points that 
he makes ? How could Bishop Butler make use of the grounds 
on which Pope rested his argument ? What were some of the 
more noted replies to Tindal ? 

VII. What was the aim of the "Boyle Lecture ?" What topics 
did it discuss ? What foreign writers influenced English thought ? 
What did Locke assert as to matter ? Who followed him ? What 
was Dodwell's aim ? How did the phrase " indiscerptibleness" of 
consciousness come into the discussion ? What other lines of dis- 
cussion converged to the issue met in Butler's "Analogy ?" What 
was the bearing of Locke's rejection of innate ideas upon the ac- 
cepted view of a Law of Nature ? What two tendencies were soon 
manifest, and by whom Avere they represented ? Who followed 
Shaftesbury in the main ? What was Dr. Clarke's view ? What 
posthumous work of Cudworth substantially agreed with it ? Who 
accepted Clarke's view ? What was said as to resolving all mo- 
tives into self-interest ? Were Balguy's views accepted withaut 
opposition ? Who called them in question ? How is virtue de- 
fined in Law's edition of " King on Evil ?" What was the position 
of Grove ? What other writer agreed with him in the main ? 
What was peculiar to Wollaston's speculations ? How was he 
criticised ? To what discussion has the chapter on Necessity in 
Butler's " Analogy," special reference ? What was the fate of the 
political phase of the controversy originating with Hobbes ? 
What lent impulse to the development of " Cambridge Platonism?" 
Did this produce a reaction ? What were the different views as to 
the foundation of moral obligation ? What other lines of discus- 
sion converged in the "Analogy?" 

VIIL What recent writers have expressed their high appreciation 
of Butler's '' Analogy ?" To whom does Dr. Chalmers compare 
Butler? What does Professor Farrar say of the "Analogy?" 
What is Butler's aim in it ? Is his argument for the future life 



QUESTIONS. 221 

positive or negative mainly ? Why ? "What is the argument, in 
substance ? What evidence have we that a system of administra- 
tion by rewards and punishments is established here ? Can the 
course of Nature be ascribed to anything but the Author of Na- 
ture ? What facts go to show a system of rewards and penalties ? 
Do present events excite apprehension of penalties yet to come ? 
How is it seen that the government of the Author of Nature is 
moral ? Are the proper rewards of virtue possible to vice ? What 
apparent exceptions are there to the rule of equal distribution of 
rewards and penalties here ? Are these exceptions inconsistent 
with a moral system ? How can we explain the fact that gratify- 
ing results sometimes follow evil deeds ? How do civil and do- 
mestic government bear upon vice ? What reason may be given 
for the unequal distribvition of happiness or misery, apart from 
personal desert ? How do virtue and vice stand related to the 
divine administration ? What would be the ultimate condition of 
a perfectly virtuous state ? Can we suppose the Author of Nature 
indifferent to virtue and vice ? What shows that the notion of a 
moral scheme of government is natural ? From what may we in- 
fer that the present is a state of probation ? How is it seen that 
v/e are on trial now ? Is this consistent with goodness ? Can we 
know why we are in such a state of probation as the present ? 
Can a happy condition be ensured here without provision ? What 
can we do to secure it ? What is the effect of habit ? How are 
we qualified for the duties of life ? Is the discipline requisite to 
the present state the same in kind with that which we must sup- 
pose requisite for the future life ? What will future happiness re- 
quire as conditional to it ? What security can we have against 
the constant liability to go astray ? How can evil be successfully 
resisted ? What accompanies the progress of this resistance ? 
What circumstances here encourage resistance ? What is to 
be said to the objection that here our powers may be over- 
tasked ? What to Shaftesbury's objection that there is no 
merit in obedience enforced by hope or fear ? May present afflic- 
tion be necessary ? Why ? Under God's natural government are 
we made at once what we were designed to become ? What is 
the inference from this ? What is left to our choice ? Can charac- 
ter be displayed and known without probation ? Does the ob- 
jection of the fatalist destroy the proof of an intelligent governor 
of the world ? Supposing the theory of necessity true, mnst it 
apply to the present life ? Does it apply ? What would be the 
effect of the practical application of this theory ? Are we treated 
as free ? What is the testimony of consciousness ? Is necessity 
consistent with merit or demerit ? Does experience justify our 
assumption of the theory of human freedom ? Is it a fact that re- 
ward and penalty are meted out as if men were free ? What does 
the general acceptance of natural religion among men show as to 
its introduction among them ? How does this acceptance consist 
with necessity ? 

If there is a moral government, on what sort of a scale must it 
be constructed ? What is requisite in order to offer vahd objection 
to any one feature of it ? Can we prove that more good or less 
evil might have resulted from a different constitution of things ? 
Do we find means operating contrary to our expectations ? Are 
general laws best ? What effect would direct interpositions to 
hinder their operation have ? Is moral obligation affected by our 
failing to discern all the results of complying with, or rejecting it ? 



222 QUESTIONS. 

As reasonable beings, can we regard without concern our relation 
to the present state as one of probation ? By what is the impor- 
tance of Christianity evidenced ? Does Butler place moral and 
positive duties in contrast ? Wliat course is best when they are 
supposed to come in conflict ? Can we reason from analogy 
against a revelation ? Can we against its mode ? Can we against 
its limited publication ? Can we against incomplete evidences of 
it ? Do we have demonstrative evidence to act upon in daily life ? 
What essays does Butler append to his "Analogy ? " 

IX. How was the "Analogy" related to the age in which it was 
written ? What gives it permanent value ? Is its value to us the 
same precisely that it was to Butler's contemporaries ? What is 
to be said of his commencing his "Analogy" with the argument 
for a future life ? What disadvantages does this method have ? 
What is the better and true method, if we wish to construct the 
scheme of the Moral System ? What leading truth did Butler as- 
sume, that we may not assume now ? Where does the proof of this 
properly come in ? What other peculiarity of Butler's work is un- 
satisfactory to us ? If we are to apprehend the moral system pro- 
perly, what course must we take ? To what does Professor Farrar 
attribute the real secret of the power of the "Analogy?" To 
what remarkable work of science does he compare it ? In what 
respect is he superior to most of his predecessors ? How had 
they discussed the Moral System ? How are the different features 
of the Moral System related to one another ? Illustrate this. What 
is the effect on the entire argument of estabhshing each position, 
separately ? What is the escellence, and what the defect of the 
"Analogy?" What merit must be conceded to it? What is 
pre-requisite to a proper presentation of the Moral System ? 



THE MORAL SYSTEM. 

I. What is Science ? What should any science do ? How many 
sciences are possible ? Among these, what position does that of 
the Moral System hold ? How is its paramount importance man- 
ifest ? In the sphere of universal knowledge, what is the place of 
the Moral System ? How is the importance of each science to be 
estimated ? What do all the sciences testify as to man ? Which 
among them all must take the precedence, and why ? Is there a 
manifest order of subordination in nature ? To what do all point 
upward ! What kindred subordination is there in the constitution 
of man's nature ? ^Yhat is supreme in it ? As the result, what is 
the great question for man to consider ? Why cannot the exist- 
ence of a moral sphere be denied ? How is this shown by the 
miseries of the world ? What resources have we at command for 
the investigation of the Moral System ? 

II. What method must be adopted to obtain a comprehensive 
view of the facts of the Moral System ? Why ? What is the 
simplest and broadest classification ? What is the threefold con- 
stitution of human nature ? Will excess or defect in one part af- 
fect all ? 1. What relation must the body and its appetites sus- 
tain to the mind ? If this relation is violated, what is the result ? 
2. How is the intellect affected by passionate excess ? 3, 4, 5. How 
does physical indulgence affect reason and conscience ? 6. How 



QUESTIONS. 223 

is neglect of educating the intellect visited with retribution on 
other parts of our nature ? 7. What is the relation of intellectual 
culture to moral development ? 

III. In what three relations does man stand to the material 
■universe ? 1. What disciplinary result follows from the relations 
of his physical nature to it ? 2. How does the intellect come in 
contact with the external world, and with what results ? 3. How 
is the intellect affected by this ? How the taste ? Is there any- 
thing directly moral in this ? 4. What remains to be done after 
knowledge of the material world has been acquired ? 5. In doing 
this, wliat are the moral results ? Plow have the highest virtues 
been nurtured ? 6. To what are we disciplined by the fixed order 
of the material universe ? How is this seen ? What other relation 
beside that of apparent antagonism, does the material universe 
sustain to man ? 2. How does this tend to draw forth and stimu- 
late the powers of mind and body ? 3. What necessities, having 
moral results, are imposed, through the relation of the body 
specifically to the external world ? As a result, what must his 
whole life become ? On what is his physical well-being condi- 
tioned ? 

IV. What are man's relations to social life ? Do they impose 
moral restraints ? 1. What point must be established to create a 
presumption that the discipline and results of social life will be 
legitimately on the side of virtue ? In cases of collision between 
society and the individual, which, as a general rule, is right ? 
What is the moral relation of society, as organised, to the indi- 
vidual ? Is social organization, considered as a structure, virtuous 
in itself ? 2. What is requisite if society is to be permanently 
maintained ? What will this require ? How are these rules 
essentially moral ? 3. How will the common self-interest hold in 
check individual selfishness ? Give an illustration of this in a 
case when selfishness is universal. 4. Can society be organized 
without recognizing the principles of equal justice ? What moral 
qualities are requisite, if men are to combine and act together ? 
How must the law deal with a lack of these qualities ? What 
proportion must penalties bear to crimes ? Would this be true 
among wicked men associated together ? Could a thoroughly 
vicious state of society among men continue to exist ? Why not ? 

5. What necessity is absolute in all social organizations ? What 
was the remark of Fisher Ames ? How is the truth of this obvious ? 

6. How- does social organization, considered in itself, stand relat- 
ed to virtue ? Is there an analogy between the difficulty of ignor- 
ing physical, and that of ignoring moral laws ? What analogy is 
there between the law of gravitation in physics, and that of mu- 
tual confidence in society ? 7. What is the efi'ect of diverse vicious 
elements in individual character ? How do they afi'ect each other ? 
What is their eft'ect in society ? Has this often been illustrated ? 
What contrast to this is presented by virtuous qualities among 
men ? 8. How do the ends that the virtuous and the vicious re- 
spectively have in view, contrast in their practicabiUty, and why ? 

V. 1. In case of injustice, is it at the option of the State to pass 
it by unnoticed ? Is punishment certain ? What can the oflender 
not escape ? 2. What may be said over against the fact that 
judges may be bribed or overawed ? 3. In dealing with the erim- 



^24 QTJESTIOKS. 

judges may be bribed or overawed ? 3, In dealing with the crim- 
inal, what is the rule as to the position occupied by the forces of 
the State ? 4. What is the operation of domestic government in 
the moral spbere ? What does a care of the child's welfare imply 
on the part of the parent as to recognizing moral distinctions, and 
making the training moral ? What is the action of natural affec- 
tion, even in some cases where the parent is vicious ? 5, What 
moral element is found in academic training and associations ? 
6. How does social influence train the mind to the recognition of 
law ? Where is the moral element in this ? 7. How does social 
influence impress a sense of individual responsibility and duty ? 
Does it operate as a restraint on vice ? Will evil men exercise a 
restraint upon one another ? How ? How are vices made dis- 
reputable ? What is necessarily the character of those acts which 
society must applaud ? What is the effect of this applause ? 8. 
How does social influence operate to produce acts of Mberality 
and generosity ? 9. Is patriotism developed by social influence ? 
Is it a virtue ? 10. What problems to be solved does society pre- 
sent ? What is the result of the effort to solve them ? What illus- 
trations of this that history presents, may be mentioned ? Does 
this show that society is naturally on the side of virtue ? 11. What 
political questions, implying the study of ethics, does society oc- 
casion ? In what form have answers to these questions been given ? 
What conclusion as to the nature of vice results from the study 
of national well-being ? 12. What social science shows that the 
just and the expedient correspond in human affairs ? What moral 
lessons are enforced by industrial and commercial transactions ? 
How is virtue essential to commercial credit ? How does every 
mercantile exchange involve a moral element ? 13. To what vir- 
tues do the inequalities of social life give rise ? In what way ? 
14. What class has the readiest claim to social sympathy ? What 
will usually be the experience of the good man in time of ca- 
lamity ? PAGE 104 

VI. Wliat additional element tends to vindicate right and expose 
wrong ? How does Butler represent the advantages of an upright 
government ? What would be the experience of a government 
disregarding the rights of its subjects, and its duties to other 
states ? Why is the contract more striking between the two states 
after a series of years ? 1. What analogy does Bishop Butler draw 
between vu^tue and reason ? Are there cases where time alone 
will secure the ends of justice ? What are they ? What contrast 
is there between the prospects of leagues of vice and of virtu- 
ous alliances ? How is this explained ? Have martyrs and crim- 
inals ahke illustrated this ? How ? Can the machinery of justice 
operate effectively wi thou fc some delay? How is a mistaken na- 
tional policy exposed ? How have the cruelties and intolerant 
usages of the past been abolished? 2. What is the contrast be- 
tween the earlier and later results of vice ? How is it with virtue ? 
3. What would be the natural effect of giving evil deeds time to 
expose their own proper results ? 4. With sufficient time to oper- 
ate, what must we infer would be the result of tendencies which 
we now discern around us ? Can we properly judge of retributive 
forces and tendencies without taking time indefinitely extended 
into our calculation ? page 115 

VII. How is it manifest that man is subject to moral discipline ? 



QUESTIONS. 225 

How that he was designed to be ? Does it make any difference, 
so far as the assertion that man has a moral nature is concerned, 
whether we make conscience a single faculty, or resolve it into 
others ? What position does the power it represents hold to other 
faculties ? How is tliis illustrated by the poets ? Is their intui- 
tion entitled to respect ? What does consciousness testify as to 
the inward check exercised over the soul ? Is this check due to 
any mercenary consideration ? Can conscience be permanently 
disregarded ? Can its power be finally suppressed ? What states 
of mind are conditioned on its ascendancy ? What is the result 
when its power is suspended ? How far does it go to prove a 
moral system ? How extensive is its sphere ? 1. What is its re- 
lation to a sense of responsibility ? 3. How is the power of con- 
science evoked in our social relations ? 3. What is its effect upon 
the minds of the good or the evil ? What is the proper effect of 
the approval of the conscience ? 4. What is the result, in oases 
of exceptional activity of conscience, on the mind of the guilty ? 
What terms used by the ancient poets illustrate their sense of 
this ? What have men cheerfully endured with an approving 
conscience ? 5. How is it that social judgments on wrong-doing 
are formed ? What are the penalties of these judgments ? What 
are their rewards ? How can we explain it that some actions ap- 
pear beautiful, and others repulsive ? What is the general char- 
acter of these respectively ? How is this illustrated in history ? 
In poetry ? Are good deeds admired by good men only ? What 
does this indicate ? What is the most distinctive and characteris- 
tic feature of the Moral System ? In what marked ways does it 
operate ? What conclusions, evidencing a moral system, flow 
from the fact of man's moral nature ? With what evident design 
is that nature framed and constituted ? What facts of its experi- 
ence show a moral system in operation ? . . . page 121 

VIII. Are we so constituted as to feel that a moral system. 
should exist ? In what cases do we find special satisfaction in 
historic accounts of noted men ? If this does not prove a moral 
system, v/hat does it prove ? To what is this mutual adaptation 
of the moral sense and the experience of fitting results, analogous 
in the physical sphere ? What leading objection is urged to a moral 
system ? 1. What is the first reply to this ? 2. What second re- 
ply may be made ? 2. What third reply ? What does the very 
idea of Probation imply ? 4. What fourth reply may be given ? 
What English poet notices this ? How is this explained without 
prejudice to the Moral System ? page 131 

IX. Does the Moral System indicate design? In what way? 
What is the alternative of denying the Moral System an intelligent 
author ? What is gained by this ? Supposing the system to have 
no intelligent author, does it operate to encourage the hope of im- 
punity to evil ? Can the order of the Moral System 1t»e resolved 
into, or fully explained by " the nature of things ?" How does the 
fact of our physical structure and moral constitution conflict with 
any such explanation ? Are there elements of our being, essen- 
tial to retribution, that might have been omitted ? Would the 
nature of things necessarily prevent such an omission ? How 
wide is the range of adaptation manifest in the Moral System ? 
What would be the logical result to the Moral System and to hu- 
man responsibility, in making all depend upon a necessity m the 

15 



226 ' QUESTIONS. 

I 
nature of things ? "What must we admit then ? Wliat will the 
Moral System reveal as to its Author ? 1. If it is framed to favor 
justice, what is the necessary inference? 2. Vv''hat will benevo- 
lence, in the broad sense, include ? What evidence have we of 
this in the Moral System ? What benevolent provisions are seen 
in connection with pain and its uses ? 3. How does the Moral 
System give evidence of wisdom ? page 136 

X. What is the scope of Bishop Butler's argument for the future 
life ? What term expresses its defects ? With what postulate 
does his negative argument start ? How does this apply, suppos- 
ing conscious being to be indivisible ? Can death be supposed to 
be a greater change to the conscious being than those changes 
which it has survived ? What do the facts of experience show as 
to the relation which the body sustains to mind ? What inference 
will this warrant, in case the body is dissolved ? Can we define 
identity ? Does it continue independent of the changes in the 
body ? How extensive are these changes ? Whose reasoning does 
Bishop Butler endorse in asserting the indivisibility of conscious- 
ness ? With what is Butler's negative argument burdened ? 1. 
Is there anything in the circumstances of our being to suggest 
naturally to us a future life ? What ? What weight is this sugges- 
tion entitled to ? 2. Have we capacities apparently adapted to a 
broader sphere than the present ? What is the significance of 
rudimentary organs, which are evidently designed for a sphere not 
yet attained in the case of the animal ? 3. Are they prophetic ? 
Are we surrounded by what are regarded as emblems of immor- 
tality ? Do they prove anything ? Does m.an's sensitiveness to 
their suggestions prove anything ? .... page 143 

XI. 1. Must we assume that the same wisdom that framed the 
Moral System, subjected man to it ? How will this create a pre- 
sumption of a future life ? Can the divine wisdom be vindicated 
on the assumption that man's existence ends with death ? Why 
not ? 2. What would the idea of Grod's goodness logically warrant 
us to infer in regard to hopes in man suggested by nature ? 
What would have to be charged upon the divine goodness, if man 
is placed in a limitless field, to perish without the opportunity to 
explore it ? How is the idea of annihilation necessarily regarded ? 
Is the gift of powers that make us sensitive to it consistent with 
goodness, if there be no future life ? 3. Can the justice of God be 
vindicated while future retribution is denied ? Does the present 
state bear raarks of being a coraplete system in itself ? What 
would be the effect upon virtue and innocence of the denial of 
future awards ? 1. How does the doctrine of a future life accord 
with the relation of the spirit to a perishable body ? What an- 
alogy is thei'e between the body and the husks of the grain ? 
2. Starting with material things and the images of them, toward 
what do the processes of education conduct the soul ?■ How is 
this seen in the process of intellectual training, from childhood 
on ? Illustrate this. 3. How does the doctrine of a future life 
harmonize with the necessities of civil justice ? . . page 148 

XII. What judgment must we form of the present life, in view 
of the soul's immortality ? What is meant by a state of probation ? 
What is the mutual relation of the two doctrines of a future life 
and of probation ? 1. In what relation, simply as preceding it. 



QUESTIONS. 227 

must the present state stand to the future ? From what does 
this result ? 2. Frora what do we derive a strong confirmatory 
presumption that the present is a state of probation ? "Wliat is 
the difference between moral system and moral government ? 
How can we explain what is sometimes objected to as an incon- 
gruity in the Moral System ? What would be the effect, if retribu- 
tion always followed wifchout delay upon transgression ? Is the 
Moral System actually modified ? How far ? 3. Are the elements 
of probation met with in actual experience ? Can it be evaded or 
avoided ? How extensively does it prevail ? How is it illustrated 
in education ? 4. What illustrations may be given of actual 
moral pi'obation now going on- ? Is there a manifest analogy be- 
tween childhood, as related to manhood, and present existence, 
as related to the future ? 5. Can the supposition that this analogy 
is inteiTupted by death, be regarded as probable ? Why improb- 
able ? 6. Must we consider probation as a process , that has an 
end in view ? 7. Why may we not suppose the entire future ex- 
istence to be like the present, probationary ? 8. Why is death 
assumed to be the normal limit of probation ? 9. Can we answer 
fully the question why man is placed in a state of probation? Y/hat 
reasons for it can be given ? May a distinction be made between 
created and acquired holiness? 10. What is the effect of the success- 
ful endurance of probation ? 11. If the future is a social state, on 
what will the security of its peace and happiness largely depend ? 
What other reasons for probation may be given ? . page 157 

XIII. Can a full answer be given to the question why probation 
has been made so severe ? If we cannot answer the question, 
m.ust we admit thafact ? What is the fact ? 1. AVhat is the first 
reason that may be given for this state of things implying severity 
of trial ? 2. How can the severity of trial which originates in an- 
cestral crime or neglect be explained in consistency v^^ith divine 
wisdom and goodness ? 3. What evidence is there that man is in 
a degenerate or fallen state ? What twofold aggravation of the 
severity of probation results ? 4. What important lesson is this 
permission of the severity of trial calculated to teach ? 5. Hov/ 
is it seen that, severe as temptation may be, there is no absolute 
necessity of yielding to it? 6. What fact forbids us to despair of 
the final triumph of those who may be subjected to severe trial ? 
7. What may be said of the results of probation sometimes when 
most severe ? Is its severity always to be regretted ? 8. What 
light is thrown on this subject by the history of past struggles 
and endurance ? 9. When severity of trial is made an objection 
to divine benevolence, what must first be considered ? What is 
the correct view of benevolence as a divine attribute ? 10. Are 
obj.ections against the reason of a fact valid against the fact ? 
What is the notorious fact as to the frequent result of probation, 
visible by us ? 11. If the present brief period of existence pro- 
duces results so surprising, must we suppose their effect to con- 
tinue hereafter ? What is the bearing of analogy on this point ? 

PAGE 166 

XIV. What is necessary in a future state, if the unequal allot- 
ments of the present are to be rectified ? 1. Must we suppose the 
introduction of any new elements, beyond what we have know- 
ledge of now, in order to secure retribution ? Why not ? May 
there be new positive elements introduced ? 2. What can we say 



228 . QUESTIONS. 

of the machinery of distributive justice now at work ? What evi- 
dences do we see in man's physical and moral constitution that 
reveal retributive design here on earth ? Is there anything that 
may be regarded as posthumous penalty under the present system ? 
When do retributive forces begin to operate ? How is this seen ? 
3. In case there is no self-betrayal on the part of the guilty, what 
risks of detection does he incur ? 4. To what are we to ascribe 
the good man's failure- to meet his due reward, and the wicked his 
due penalty here ? Is it because of the natural tendencies of 
things, or because those tendencies are temporarily arrested ? 
What would be the result if life here were indefinitely prolonged ? 
5. What may we infer from this that would go far toward insur- 
ing retribution ? 6. What alone would interfere with the continu- 
ed operation of retributive forces in the future life ? What must 
we assume would remain in the future just as at present ? 7. Is 
it to be supposed that the loss of physical sensibility, with the 
dissolution of the body, Avould seriously detract from the fearful- 
ness of retribution ? Why not ? 8. What light does analogy throw 
on the continuance of future retribution ? Has penalty here a 
reforming power to any considerable extent ? What is the usual 
character of repentance under penalty ? 9. How must we suppose 
the prospect of the rewards of the good to be affected by relief 
from subjection to physical conditions and hardships ? 10. To 
what conclusion are we brought by the foregoing considerations ? 

PAGE 173 

XV. In a field so vast and complex as that of the Moral System^ 
what is to be expected ? In what do the difficulties we meet, con- 
sist ? 1. How must a certain class of difficulties — such as the vin- 
dication of human freedom and of the divine goodness — be met? 
2. What proportion do the facts we know bear to those we do 
not know ? If the latter could be known, what difiiculty would 
remain ? 3. What would be requisite to justify us in criticising 
certain aspects of probation ? Is human probation to be judged 
as an isolated fact or system ? 4. What relation does the sphere 
of our observation bear to that of the scheme to which probation 
must be supposed to belong ? 5.' What illustration of our incom- 
petence to criticise the Moral System is found in connection with 
human mechanism ? Is this an adequate analogy ? 6. Can we 
suppose our Moral System to be a detached fragment ? What is 
the inference then ? What has become already of many objections 
that have been brought against the wisdom and goodness of Grod 
in creation ? 7. What problems in the sphere of Probation and 
the Moral System, does history present, and how may we suppose 
them to be solved ? 8. What analogy, illustrative of this point, 
do we find in the planetary system ? What in the sphere of art ? 

PAGE 180 

XVI. What will follow from our ascribing the order of the moral 
constitution of things to a supreme intelligence ? Must man's 
creation have been with reference to some end to be gained by it? 
1. By what process do we investigate the design manifest in the 
constitution of things ? 2. Where is design most strikingly mani- 
fest ? What must we assume to be the design in man's creation ? 
From what class of the results of probation, should we select the 
materials that evidence its design ? 3. How do we proceed in the 
Btudy of a human mechanism, to find out what it was meant to 



QUESTIONS. 229 

produce ? Can we discern this better from the inferior results of 
probation ? On what ground can we decide what is the better ? 
What phrase of tlie ancient philosophers expresses their ideal of 
perfect manhood ? 4. If the attainment of this is rare, does it af- 
fect our arguoient ? Why not ? 5. Can the scheme for perfecting 
man's nature be limited in its scope merely to individuals ? How 
has the idea of the progress of the race been regarded ? 6. What 
objection may be urged against the assumption that the moral 
perfection of man and of the race, is the designed end of the 
Moral System ? What reply may be made to the assertion that 
man is necessarily a di-udge ? Is the necessity of toil inconsistent 
with moral progress ? What is the ministry or use of toil ? 7. 
Does history foi'ce us to conclude against the possibility of the 
moral progress of the race ? Have enthusiastic minds been dis- 
appointed in their cherished plans ? Why do we not conclude 
that those plans are merely romantic dreams ? Have past failures, 
however repeated or disastrous, led to their abandonment ? 8. 
What view are we to take of progress in the past ? 9. Is it essen- 
tial to the argument to determine to what causes progress has 
been due ? Why not ? What are we, then, to conclude ? 10. 
What are the circumstances of the Moral System, in which we ask 
what will be the probable course of divine procedure ? 11. Why 
must we suppose the Moral System, after apparent failuie, to be 
continued ? From the continuance of the system, after apparent 
failure, what are we to. infer ? What is the conclusion forced 
upon us in regard to the powers of reason, from the survey of an- 
cient learning and philosophy ? 12. How will this conclusion be 
modified by looking at the condition of less cultured nations? 

PAGE 185 
XVII. On what ground might it be asserted that, with time and 
opportunity, man might attain the end of his creation without di- 
vine aid ? 1. How is this objection to be met ? What evidence 
is there that the moral and religious status of the race at a very 
early period was higher than in later times ? 2. What are the 
facts as to China, Egypt, and other ancient nations ? 3. By what 
two theories may this be accounted for ? Does either theory i-e- 
lieve the difficulty ? Why not ? 4. ^Vhat is the inference if the 
earlier Theism was reasoned out ? What is admitted if this The- 
ism was by means of an original revelation ? 5. What is necessary 
to account for the advance actually made by some portions of the 
race ? When do we find the purest Theism ? How early do we 
find a marked religious degeneracy in progress ? How widely 
does the evil extend ? Is it arrested by progress in art and intel- 
lectual culture ? What was the moral condition of the Roman 
empire at the height of its grandeur ? 6. Did Heathenism give 
evidence of any power to lift itself out of its degraded state ? 7. 
Is the permitted continuance of such a condition of things cred- 
ible ? What is more incredible ? 8. In what is the only ground 
for hope ? Can reason discover any resource ? Has self-recovery 
of nations from moral degradation ever occurred, without foreign 
help ? 9. What expectation does the continuance of the race in 
such circumstances, encourage us to cherish ? How can the partial 
and local progress of the race morally, be explained ? How the 
original Theism ? How the Jewish Theism ? How was the pro- 
gress of decay in the old Roman world arrested ? 10, Is there any 
analogy for this in the natural government of the world ? 

PAGE 194 



230 QUESTIONS. 

XVIII. If a diyine interposition is to take place, what form must 
it assume ? 1. Why ? 2. With what must a re-statement of the 
lost truth be accompanied ? 3. Must there be some provision to 
perpetuate the truth or its influence ? 4. Can reason teach us be- 
forehand, how such a revelation must be made ? 5. What answer 
has been given to the question, has a revelation been made? 
What do the various professed revelations that we meet with in 
the past, indicate ? Is there any among them that can plausibly 
be represented as a rival of Christianity in its claims to respect ? 
6. What does the Old Testament assert as the explanation of 
Jewish Theism ? 7. What support of the claims of the New Tes- 
tament is found in the changes it effected ? What was the char- 
acter of these changes ? 8. What may be said of the triumphs it 
has achieved ? What presumption does this warrant ? What 
strengthens this presumption ? 9. What may be said of the docu- 
ments on which Christianity is based ? Do they leave the impres- 
sion of unity of aim ? Could there have been a conspiracy on the 
part of their authors ? 10. What internal congruity do the doc- 
trines of Christianity manifest ? What are the principal of these 
doctrines ? Has any one Biblical writer claimed the honor of 
originating Christianity ? 11. How do the motives of Christianity 
compare in moral power with those with which it has come in con- 
flict ? 15. In what are we to look for the secret of the power of 
the Bible ? Will style or poetic beauty explain it? What, then, 
m.ust be conceded with regard to it ? . . . . page 202 

XIX. 1. What is one main objection to revelation ? What de- 
tracts from the force of this objection ? Is the difiaculty in the 
repetition of what is miraculous ? In what then ? What do we 
constantly meet in the sphere of human experience ? Does it make 
any difference in the result, whether we call this will-force natural 
or supernatural ? Why not ? Does the doctrine of a Divine Prov- 
idence, as taught in the Scriptures, harmonize with what we 
must infer concerning it, from the study of the Moral System ? 
Why must we consider Providence as universal ? 3. How does 
history illustrate an overruling providence ? 4. What is implied 
in the doctrine of "human depravity ?" What testimony in hu- 
man experience confirms it ? What necessity occasioned by this 
depravity is man conscious of, and how has he sought to meet it? Is 
there anything in human experience strictly analogous to what, 
in the Scriptures, is represented as the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ? 
Is the principle of it — vicarious suffering for the benefit of others — 
without human analogies ? 6. What is understood by the phrase, 
" Original Sin ? " What approach, in experience with which we 
are famihar, have we to an analogy of it ? Do the facts of the 
Moral System throw light upon the Scripture doctrine of the ne- 
cessity of "regeneration?" What moral changes do we have 
knowledge of, somewhat analogous to ic ? 7. What features of the 
Moral System in operation, correspond to the system revealed in 
the Scriptures ? 8. How do the Moral System, and the teachings 
of the Scriptures, stand related severally to the theory of neces- 
sity ? 9. How does the extent of the Moral System, as contemplat- 
ed by reason, compare with its extent as set forth by revelation ? 
10. What do the Moral System and the Scriptures alike testify as 
to the frequent results of probation ? 11. What may be said of 
many of the objections urged against Revelation ? . page 208 



QUESTIONS. 231 

XX. On what evidence does the existence of the Moral System 
rest ? In what way does this system indicate design ? What may 
we infer from the character of a system, that reveals design ? What 
attributes of God do we infer from the Moral System ? On what 
grounds do we infer a future life ? On what grounds do we infer 
that the present state is probationary ? On what grounds do we 
assert that man, left to himself here, fails as a rule to attain the 
proper end of his being ? On what grounds do we feel warranted 
to anticipate divine interposition ? On what grounds do we assert 
that interposition has taken place ? What is the effect of estab- 
lishing each new position as we advance ? What is the result as 
to the position which the Moral System must take in the realm of 
science ? To what cheering view are we led by the study of the 
Moral System ? What necessity does the existence of the Moral 
System impose upon man ? page 215 



COMPLETION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT SECTION 



Kdlted with Additions by E. R. Craven, D.D., of Newark, N. J. TransIjLbon by M!ss 

KVELINA Moore. With an Index of Topics and of Greek Words 

covering the New Testament volumes, by J. H. Woods. 

Under the general editorship of Dr. PHILIP SCHAFF. 

t vol. 8vo, sheep, $6.50. Half calf, $7.50. Cloth, $5.00. 

With the appearance of this long-expetted volume the New Testament division 
01 Lance's Commentary is completed. The ten volumes in which this section of the 
work is comprised constitute a thesaurus of criticism and exegesis so thorough and 
exhaustive that it may with justice be called complete. Nothing approaching this 
Commentary in range has ever before been attempted, and the results of the investiga- 
tions of Biblical students up to the present time, and the best thoughts of all previous 
commentators, are so carefully summed up in it that it must stand for years without a 
rival ; indispensable alike to the clergyman, the educated layman, and all students of the 
Bible who wish to arrive at the precise interpretation of the Sacred Word. 



The Volumes j>reviously published are : 

. OLDTESTAMENT.— I. GENESIS. II. JOSHUA, JUDGES, AND 
RUTH. III. FIRST AND SECOND KINGS. IV. PSALMS. 
V. PROVERBS, SONG OF SOLOMON, ECCLESIASTES. VI. 
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS. VII. MINOR 
PROPHETS. 

NEW TESTAMENT.— I. MATTHEW. II. MARK AND LUKE. 
III. JOHN. IV. ACTS. V. THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE 
ROMANS. VI. CORINTHIANS. VII. GALATIANS, EPHESIANS 
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THY. TITUS, PHILEMON, AND HEBREWS. IX. THE EPIS- 
TLES GENERAL OF JAMES, PETER, JOHN AND JUDE. 

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J. F. HURST, D.D., Methodist. C. P. WING, D.D., Presbyterian. 

TAYEER LEWIS, LL.D., Dutch Reformed. GEORGE E. DAY. D.D., Congregational. 

Rev. CH. F. SHAFFER, D.D., Lutheran. Rev. P. H. .STEENSTRA, Episcopal. 

R. D. HITCHCOCK, D.D., Presbyterian. A. GOSMAN,-D.D., Presbyterian. 

E. H-ARWOOD, D.D., Episcopal. Pres. CHAS. A. AIKEN, D.D., Presbyt'n. 

H. B. HACKETT, D.D., Baptist. M. B. RIDDLE, D.D., Dutch Reformed. 

JOHN LILLIE, D.D., Presbyterian. Prof. WM. WELLS, D.D., Med.cdist. 

Rev. W. G. SUMNER, Episcopal. W. H. HORNBLOWER, D.D., Presbyt'u. 

Prof. CHARLES ELLIOTT, Presbyterian. Prof. GEORGE BLISS, Baptist. 

THOS. C. CONANT, D.D., Baptist. T. W. CHAMBERS, D.D., Reformed. 

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An Important Historical Series. 
EPOCHS OF HISTORY". 



EDITED BY 



EDWARD E. MORRIS, M. A,, 

Of Lincoln College, Oxford. 
Head Master of the Bedfordshire Middle-Class Public School, &c. 



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HISTORIES of countries are rapidly becoming so numerous that it is almost impos 
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of course, still less likely to be mastered by those of limited leisure. It is to meet the 
wants of this very numerous class of readers that the Epochs of History has been 
projected. The series will comprise a number of compact, handsomely printed man- 
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sketching succintly the most important epochs in the world's history, always making 
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THE FOLLOWING VOLUMES ARE NOW READY: 

The ERA of the PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. By F. Seebohm, Author 
of "The Oxford Reformers — Colet, Erasmus, More." 

The CRUSADES. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A., Author of the " History of 
Greece." 

•> he THIRTY YEARS' WAR, I618— 1648. By Saivhiei, Rawson Gardiner. 

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EPOCHS OF HISTORY. 



EPOCHS SELECTED AND AUTHORS. 



The ERA of the PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. By F. 

Seebohm, Author of "The Oxford Reformers — Colet, Erasmus, 
More." {N'o'iU ready.) 

The CRUSADES. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A., Author of 
the "History of Greece." {Now ready.) 

The THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618—1648. By Samuel Rawson 
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The BEGINNING of the MIDDLE AGES; CHARLES the 
GREAT and ALFRED; the HISTORY of ENGLAND in its 
connection with that of EUROPE in the NINTH CENTURY. 
By tlie Very Rev. R. \V. Church, M.A. Dean of St. Paul's. 

The NORMAN KINGS and the FEUDAL SYSTEM. By 

the Rev. A. II. Johnson, M.A. 

The EARLY PLANTAGENETS and their relation to the HIS- 
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M.A., etc., Regius Professor of Modern History in the Univer- 
sity of Oxford. 

EDWARD in. By the Rev. W. Warburton, M.A., late Her 
Majesty's Senior Inspector of Schools. 

The HOUSES of LANCASTER and YORK; with the CON- 
QUEST and LOSS of FRANCE. By James Gajrdnkr, of the 
Public Record Office. 

The AGE of ELIZABETH. By the Rev. M. Creighton, M.A. 

The STUARTS and the PURITAN REVOLUTION. By J. 

Langton Sanford. 

The PALL of the STUARTS; and WESTERN EUROPE from 
1678 to 1697. By the Rev. Edward Hale, M.A., Assistant 
Master at Eton. 

The AGE of ANNE. By Edward E. Morris, M.A., Editor 
of the Series. 

FREDERICK the GREAT and the SEVEN YEARS' WAR. 
By F. W. Longman, of Balliol College, Oxford. 

The WAR of AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. By John 

Malcolm Ludlow. 

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The Great Theological Work of the Age. 

DR. HODGFSJHEOLOGY. 

gSlFHlflMr 

By CHARLES HODGE, D.D., LLD., 

of Princeton Theological Seminary. 

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AN D ESCHATOLUGY, Vol. HL 

The INTRODUCTION is devoted to the consideration of preliminary matters, such as 
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SOTERIOLOGY includes the Plan or Purpose of God in reference to the Salvation of 
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NO^A/■ READT.— FOUR VOLUMES. 
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GENESIS.— Right Rev. E. Harold Browne, D.D. EXODUS, Chap. I.— XIX. 
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LEVITICUS.— Rev. Samuel Clark, M.A. NUMBERS and DEUTERONOMY.— 
Rev. T. E. EsriN, B.D. . 

Section II.— The Historical Books. 

I'.A.E.T i. (i Fal.) 
JOSHUA.— Rev. T. E. Espin, B.D. JUDGES, RUTK, SAMUEL.— Right Rev. 
Lord Arthur Hervev, M.A. FIRST KINGS.— Rev. George Ravvlinson, M.A. 
FJ>^:EtT XI. (i Voi.) 
SECOND KINGS, CHRONICLES, EZRA, NEHEMIAH, ESTHER.— 
Rev. George Rawlin.son. 

Section III. The Poetical Books, (i ^"^O 

JOB.— The Editor. PSALMS.— The Editor. Very Rev. G. H. S. Johnson, Rev. 
C. 1. Elliott, M.A. PROVERBS.— Rev, E. H. Plumptre, M.A. ECCLESIAS- 
TES.— Rev.W. T. Bullock, M.A. SONG OF SOLOMON.— Rev. T. Kingsbury, M.A. 

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SDINBtrHGH REVIEW.— "The BEST HiBlory of the Roman Republic " 

ttONDON TIMES "BY FAR THE BEST Historr of the Decline and Fall 

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THE 




FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINEm 
By Dr. THEODOE MOMMSEN. 

Translated, with the author's sanation and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regius 

Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical 

Examiner in the University of St. Andrews. With an In- 

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REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION. 

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Dr. MoMMSEN has long been known and appreciated through his researches 
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the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these departments of his- 
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these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a vigorous, spirited, 
and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical powers, which give this 
history a degree of interest and a permanent value possessed by no othei 
record of the decline and fall of the Roman Commonwealth. " Dr. 
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the produflion of a man of most profound and extensive learning and 
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guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of modern history." 

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parison with the noblest produAions of modern history."- -Dr. Schmitz. 

" TTiis is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole — tho 
author's complete mastery of his subjeft, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, hia 
graphic power in the delineation of national and individual charafter, and the vivid interes! 
which he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere.*' 
—Kdinbui-gh Rtvieiu. 

" A cook of deepest interest."- -Dean Trench. 



ANOTHER GREAT HISTORICAL WORK. 




By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS. 

Translated by ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, IVI.A., Fellow of St. Peter's 
College, Cambridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester 

Complete in five vols., crotvn 8vo, at $3.50 per volume. 

Printed upon Tinted Paper, uniform with Mommsen's History of Rome, and the 
Library Edition of Froude's History of England. 



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historical literature. Avoiding the minute details which overburden other similar works, 
it groups together in a very picturesque manner all the important events in the history of 
this kingdom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's civilization. 
The narrative of Prof. Curtius' work is flowing and animated, and the generalizations, 
although bold, are philosophical and sound. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 



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the side of justice, humanity, and progress." — London Atheni^uin. 

"We can not express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' book better than by saying that it may 
be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen's great work." — London SJiectator. 

"As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to 
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the 
age." — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 

" The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of 
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No. ef Volt. 

AT,EXANDER'S (Dr. J. W.).. ..Consolation i 

ALEXANDER'S (Dr. J. A.) ....Isaiah a 

do. do. Psalms a 

do. do Sermons x 

ADAMS (Dr. Wm.) Thanksgiving i 

ANDREWS (Rev. S. J.) Life of Our Lord i 

BUSHNELL'S Nature and the Supernatural x 

CONYBEARE & HO\VSON'S..St. Paul a 

FISHER'S (Prof. Geo. P.) Supernatural Origin of Christianity.. x 

HURST'S (Prof. J. F.) History of Rationalism x 

LILLIE'S (Dr. John) Le(5tures on Peter x 

SHEDD (Dr. W. G. T.) Sermons to the Natural Man x 

STANLEY'S (Dean) History of the Jewish Church a 

do. do History of the Eastern Church i 

THOMPSON'S (Dr. J. P.) Theology of Christ x 

WOOLSEY (Dr. T. D.) ...Religion of the Present and Future.. x 



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